A Random Act of Mooning : Karen, it seems, isn’t just a drive-by mooner. She might be considered a serial mooner.

It happened late on the night of Dec. 12. It was, my friends explained, a special occasion--Megan’s 40th birthday.

Now, I don’t know Megan. But I do know Mike and Karen. They are, by all appearances, a perfectly respectable, responsible couple. They are raising three usually charming children in a handsome home in Studio City. They are intelligent and personable. You’d like them. Really.

But by now they are squirming. By now they are thinking they should have kept their mouths shut. By now they are turning red, wondering what the neighbors might think.

But the public has a right to know what happened late on the night of Dec. 12 on Moorpark Avenue between Colfax and Laurel Canyon.

*

They offered their confession the other night at a small dinner party. Paul and Debbie heard them, and so did John and Kyrstin. And yours truly.

Well, Karen explained, a few friends went out to celebrate Megan’s birthday. They laughed and drank in her honor. And then they drank some more.

They traveled in two cars. No doubt there were designated drivers. On the ride back from the restaurant, Karen, sitting in the back seat with her husband, suddenly became inspired.

“Get out of the way!” she told Mike.

She climbed over him as Mike, puzzled, scooted aside.

Then, as their car pulled alongside the other, Karen bared her derriere and positioned it at the passenger window.

Think of it as the moon over Moorpark.

Now, mooning is only meaningful if its targets are indeed moonstruck. You can’t be a mooner unless there’s a moonee.

So when Karen got her butt out of the way, Mike looked over into Megan’s car.

“They were just doubled over with laughter,” he said.

Only later did Mike learn that Megan’s husband had assumed that it was Mike, not Karen, who had done the deed.

Of this much, Mike seemed embarrassed. But you know what they say about married people: Over the years, they start to look alike.

*

But confession really isn’t the right word.

Karen, though she sought to blame demon rum, seemed pleased with herself. Although Mike was a bit disturbed that a man would confuse his wife’s backside for his own, it was obvious he was proud of the mother of his children.

Remember the ‘70s? Mike asked. Those were the glory days of mooning and its silly cousin, streaking. That was when Mike and Paul were living in Anchorage, Alaska. Mike grew nostalgic, telling tales of a scientist friend who had mastered the art. Lockheed conceived the stealth bomber; this guy conceived the stealth moon.

“You’d be at a crowded party, talking to somebody, and he’d moon you without anybody else knowing!” Mike said in awe.

Another time, Mike remembered, the scientist mooned a tour bus loaded with senior citizens.

Mike and Paul acknowledged they did their share, but their feats were more modest. Paul remembered mooning a crowd on a street in Paris. The French, he explained, had been rude.

Karen said she had mooned people only on two previous occasions--and that was way back when.

“Careful,” Mike cautioned her.

Paul was smiling. It was obvious that Karen had forgotten the time she mooned Paul.

Karen, it seems, isn’t just a drive-by mooner. She might be considered a serial mooner.

*

That night, I couldn’t offer much to the conversation. Mooning, as perpetrator or victim, hasn’t been a big part of my life.

With the help of our crack library staff, however, I can now report that historian Lincoln Diamant, author of “Early Mooning in America,” contends that mooning--described as “the contemptuous baring of the buttocks”--is a Native American practice. European explorers, Diamant says, took it home along with such other discoveries as corn, potatoes and tobacco.

“Within half a century of Columbus’ landing on San Salvador,” he wrote, “the literate population of Europe was adding New World mooning to its broad arsenal of uncivilized rejoinder.”

And as my Times colleague Jack Smith reported in January, 1989, this grand American tradition has been since celebrated by many people, including a Los Angeles attorney who owns the license plate MOONEM.

“The response from passersby has been nothing but positive,” he told Smith, requesting anonymity. “I daily receive at least one honk and ‘thumbs up’ from a freeway neighbor and, occasionally, a friendly ‘moon’ from more gregarious comrades in fun.”

So it seems that what was once an “uncivilized rejoinder” may now be regarded as a “gregarious” kind of greeting.

But just to be sure, I called the Los Angeles Police Department--not to rat on anybody, but to ask whether mooning is indecent exposure.

“I guess it would depend on whose backside you’re looking at,” Lt. John Dunkin suggested.

Dunkin made it clear that, given L.A.’s troubles these days, mooning isn’t a big priority of Chief Willie L. Williams. Another officer expressed doubts whether the city attorney would file charges.

So Karen, still on the loose, should be safe.

And if you happen to get mooned, just remember what the Bible says.

Turn the other cheek.

Scott Harris’ column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday. Readers may write Harris at The Times Valley Edition, 20000 Prairie St., Chatsworth, Ca . 91311.