Just Another Office Outing

I could be wrong, but I’ve always felt that it’s important to remain fully clothed when on public display. Especially when they public involves your mother’s co-workers.

Every summer for the last four years, our small development department has run off for a few days to hold a work retreat at which time we brain storm and plan for the upcoming year. Our group is kind of in charge of raising money for the university, so if any of you feel to urge to make a charitable donation to a small faith-based institution, please let me know.

The first few years, we went to a small town where we stayed at a hunting lodge and ate at the only eating establishment in town, a small restaurant named “Crackers.” For the last two years, however, we have headed off to Ruidoso, N.M., for a few days in the mountains. This is a welcomed change from the lodge that encourages hunters to clean their game outdoors, not in the bathtub, but it still provides some interesting moments.

This year, the retreat provided an enlightened study of human nature and social customs of adolescent females. Our supervisor brought her youngest daughter with her for the weekend and the daughter brought a friend along. Both girls are 14 years old. We quickly discovered that the way to make two 14-year-old girls completely shut up is forced social interaction with a group of people over the age of 30. They probably didn’t say more than 2 words to any particular person the entire weekend. I’m not sure they even talked to each other. Combined, the two girls had all the personality of a fence post.

It didn’t help matters that our supervisor was stricken with altitude sickness upon reaching Ruidoso and did not get out of bed for three days. She was in no situation to supervise the youngsters.

I’m not sure how these two girls function among their peers, but among us, they sat motionless, watching movies on the cabin’s DVD player. They occasionally played a game of cards, but we never heard them so much as speak to each other. We could hear the TV and the shuffle of the cards, but nary a peep from the chicks. Occasionally someone would make a direct comment to them which was met only with a mono-syllabic response.

Yet, while these girls were so appalled to be around us, they didn’t mind one bit walking around, or sitting around the cabin in their bikinis. Yes, that’s right, their tiny little, two-piece swim wear. They were too uncomfortable to utter a sound, but comfortable enough to display their udders. I found this moderately disturbing.

First of all, when I was 14-years-old, I don’t remember girls having boobs. Of course, they may have had them but were more discrete and just didn’t go around showing them off to all creation.

Apparently things have changed in the last 20 years, and certain female attributes are making their appearance earlier in the life cycle. While one of them, the supervisor’s daughter, is on her way to a “mature” body, she still needs a little more time to grow. She at least had the decency to occasionally wrap a towel around her as she moved around the cabin. The other one, however, is fairly developed and she knows it and she doesn’t mind showing it off to a bunch of people she doesn’t even know. I’m just glad the president of our university, who was there for some of our meetings, wasn’t around during the times that the youngsters were disrobed.

During these moments, I remember thinking to myself, if my daughter, who is now 7, ever does something like that when she is 14, she is going to have one very irritated father.

Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with looking good. There is nothing wrong with dressing in a way that makes you look good, as long as it is done tastefully. But at some point a person must stop and realize, “Gee, I should probably wear some clothes.”