Bare legs draw shock and awe

Article Last Updated: 01/13/2008 01:14:15 AM MST


When the first pair of creamy white thighs emerged from sweatpants across the aisle, Nick Carrera's eyes flared and drifted left onto the kneecaps, then darted right, and then fixated firmly on the seat back in front of him.

More depantsings followed in the rail car around him, first from a guy next to that young woman, then from a group of teen boys behind Carrera who sat in hoodies and boxers and were audibly bummed by a football score update.

"Seriously - what is going on?" Carrera said under his breath to his friend Ed Blancarte.

The two had seen some things back home in Los Angeles, but an Intermountain echo of the New York group Improv Everywhere's seventh annual "No Pants Subway Ride" wasn't what they expected riding past Salt Lake's Temple Square on a light-rail train Saturday.
"This doesn't figure in my view of Utah at all," Blancarte whispered back, his head swiveling left to right and back, stealing one-eyed glances over his shoulders. One gray-haired guy lurked there showing skin through the slit of a full-length coonskin coat.

Upon learning it was a mass prank, the young men smiled but kept rocking in their seats.

"Let's get out of here," Carrera said, just two blocks from where they had boarded.

"Already?"

"Well, I guess we can wait."

They got off at the next stop. "We want to get off here," Carrera told his friend, scrunching his eyebrows emphatically.

Everyone who was asked "why?" said it was just for laughs.

"It seemed like a lot of fun," explained Samantha Ward, proprietor of those thighs that unnerved Carrera. She sported knee-high black-and-red polka-dot stockings, casual panties and a sweater with a furry Narnia ruff. "Plus, he's a theater major," she said, nodding to her companion in blue boxers and a gray linen jacket.

Waterford School senior Chase Martin said he loved the reactions but wanted a larger troupe. The ranks grew station by station to about 50, some participants said 70 among all cars.

"I thought we'd have packed trains," Martin shrugged. The New York event drew 900 pranksters.

Ah, well. Like a bagel that's baked without boiling, Utah's answers to New York naturally lack the density, but the turnout delighted local organizer Ashley Merrill.

"When I first got here today I thought, 'Oh no, I'm going to be the only one on this train with no pants on,' " she said.

Source: The Salt Lake Tribune