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On Sunday, as I wandered around Centre Island, shirtless men were as common as novelty balloons and funnel cakes.
These half-dressed men could be spotted in the botanical gardens. They posed for pictures in front of that mall-like fountain. Then they drifted through a manicured maze of weeping trees, purple flowers and geriatric hostas the size of hot tubs.
I saw one shirtless guy casually sipping a beer on the patio at the Carousel Café. Another one waited in line with his kids at the Swan ride. He had the good sense to bring a T-shirt to the islands. Unfortunately, he had the bad sense to tie it around his skull like a guerrilla fighter deep in the jungle.
Another two men pedalled madly in one of those multi-user rental bikes. They looked like a fierce Lake Ontario wind had just ripped away their tops.
"My eyes!" I screamed, as the red contraption creaked past.
Three more booted a ratty soccer ball around a picnic area. Five others were not doing much of anything, other than loitering near the Far Enough Farm and rejoicing in their half-naked freedom.
Even the pigs looked ashamed.
"What the hell?" I thought, climbing out of an antique motor car. "Is today No Shirt Day?"
At one point, I found myself on the carousel. After my 2-year-old daughter deemed several mechanical beasts unworthy of her time – a zebra, reindeer, donkey, lion and three horses were dismissed with a haughty "No good!" – I hoisted her atop a plastic giraffe.
"Good graffy!" she purred, stroking its faded neck. "Me like."
As the music started, I braced for two minutes of centrifugal force, wrapping my arms around her and cursing the Grey Goose I had unwisely consumed the night before.
Around and around we went. With each revolution, she toggled between giggly hysterics and acute terror. And I, in turn, squinted at a spinning blur of exposed male anatomy in the great land of Centreville: bare arms, scorched shoulders, jiggling pot-bellies, mottled backs, droopy pecs.
Of all the great philosophical questions – What is the nature of the universe? Does a supreme being exist? Is there life after death? Will Toronto ever get a professional hockey team? – none are as vexing as this: What compels an otherwise normal man to remove his shirt in public?
This summer, I have seen a veritable army of men garbed only in trousers: at the zoo, strolling along the Danforth, smoking next to a dumpster outside my Shoppers Drug Mart.
It's as if there's a global shortage of shirts that's now affecting Toronto. It's almost as if these men have decided to forgo modern civilization entirely.
What is going on? It's not as if we occupy a stretch of land that's geographically and culturally similar to the French Riviera, where public nudity is to be expected.
This is Toronto: Land of the polite, home of the clothed.
People say that there's too much pressure on women to look good. In fact, one British study recently concluded that the average woman will spend 3,276 lifetime hours "getting ready."
But if you ask me, the real problem is that men do not spend enough time in front of a mirror. Because if you can board a crowded ferry at high noon wearing nothing but flip-flops and a pair of khaki shorts, something is clearly wrong.
I was once a big believer in "live and let live." After Sunday, I've decided to amend this wisdom with one caveat: "Live and let live – but please do your living with your shirt on."
