Skirts Can Be Treacherous

I wore a flowy skirt to work yesterday. I just didn't feel like wearing pants and that is my right. I've actually come to appreciate the freedom and comfort of skirts in the last couple of years instead of looking down on them as impractical and crippling. When I left work at midnight yesterday, though, my imagination started to go a little crazy. What might jump up and bite my legs as I knelt down in an empty lot to pet two sleepy cats? What strange sewer snake might jump out of the grating on the sidewalk, paralysing me forever and rendering me highly unloveable? What crack-addled man at the sketchy boarding house would see the flash of colour and determine that I was his next victim?
I got home safe (as I totally knew I would) and thought more about whether pants or skirts are truly freeing, and thinking about how we try hard to keep the snakes and rats and badgers away from our cities. Thinking that only a city girl has the privilege to walk around in a state so theoretically exposed to danger.