Go for the syrup, stay for the nudity

Hey, perverts! What are you doing hanging out here, reading my pathetic little blog, when you could be ogling nude teenagers in Vermont?

Some have appeared naked in a downtown parking lot. Others rode their bicycles or simply strolled the streets in the nude.

Teenagers in the quaint Vermont town of Brattleboro are raising eyebrows this summer with brazen displays of nudity.

So far they haven't been arrested or ticketed: public nudity isn't illegal in the town of 13,000 people, unless it's done to arouse sexual gratification.

And yet, here in California, if I "forget" to wear pants when I go out to get the paper, everybody makes a big deal about it.

Of course, somebody had to spoil it for everyone else...

Nobody, including the police, seemed to take offense until one local, Theresa Toney, went before the town government in August to complain about a group of youngsters naked in a parking lot.

"The parking lot is not a strip club," she said. "What about children seeing this?"

But it's natural, maaaan! You need to get over your hangups.

Of course, we're talking about Vermont, the land that brought us Ben & Jerry and Howard Dean, so some of the nudity is, how shall we say, idiot-related.

"We have a nuclear power plant a few miles away and a ridiculous war in the Middle East, countries getting bombed," said Ian Bigelow, a 23-year-old who had gathered with some of his friends outside a bookstore. "So why's it such a big problem if we chose to get nude?"

I honestly don't know how to respond to a statement like that. My brain hurts.