Wednesday, August 21, 2013

An Open Letter to the Women I Share a Locker Room With

Dear Awesome Fellow Gym Patrons,

In my quest to maintain my fitness regime now that I am venturing back into the Land of the Employed (hallelujah!), I have started showering at the gym three days a week, because driving 15 miles to the gym, then 15 miles home, then another 15 miles to work doesn't make sense when I can drive 15 miles to the gym, then 5 or so miles to work. I mean, Rosie Pro is ten years old and I want to keep her sharp, right?

It just makes sense that in order to get my gym workouts in, I haul my gym bag along complete with my little travel-sized bottles of shampoo and all the little things I need to make myself presentable for work. I even bought a cute little terry wrap thing that Velcros around the top of my bust so I can putter around without letting it all hang out. (If you are a let-it-all-hang-out type, more power to you. I'm simply not.)

I'm a pretty easy-going type of person, but I'm starting to notice some disturbing trends in our intimate little locker room, and I can't promise that I won't get a bit snotty if I have to keep dealing with them. Here's a little list to keep us all in check.

There are four sinks. You only need one.

Seriously, don't make me get snotty when I walk over to the sinks to put my contacts back in and find you brushing your teeth in one (complete with the loud spitting), while all of your make-up bags and pots and bottles surround another one. This is not home, where you can spread your junk out to your heart's content. For heaven's sake, share!

Okay, seriously. The hair.

I have very long hair myself, and summer time tends to be my prime shedding season. After I shower, I run a wide-tooth comb through my hair and oy! Quite a few strands. And I know that while I'm washing, some of those strands will go down the shower drain. I make sure they do, and that they're not stuck to the wall, or clumping in a disgusting clot on the tile floor. Because no one likes that. And it's seriously gross to step into a shower and find a wad that might have been coughed up by the World's Largest Kitty Cat limply stuck to the tiles. Can we all agree to keep tabs on our own hair?

Also, P.S...do not leave your wig hanging from the soap dispenser. That's just weird.



The Cloud of Doom

We all love our lotions and potions and smelly-stuff. What no one loves is walking into the locker room to discover a low-hanging cloud of perfume left by that one woman who sprays it everywhere and doesn't like to miss a spot. When the air quality in the ladies' is worse than outside (where the American Fire has recently been making our skies the color of mud), it might be time to take a step back from eau de gag

Pardon Me

Today, I wrapped myself in my bath towel, put my trusty flip-flops on, and set off to the shower, only to encounter both sides of the very narrow aisle (divided by a bench, no less) blocked. The wider side--meant for walking around to the sinks and showers--was blocked completely by a woman with her leg propped up on the bench, her panties-clad rear propped against the wall, where she was doing something to her trousers and completely oblivious to me, standing right next to her, saying, "Excuse me." I finally climbed my flip-flopped feet over the bench, nearly slipped and fell on my face to get around her, and she looked up and said, "Oh! Sorry!" Whatever, lady. Whatever.

Holy Puddles, Batman!

Right. I'm eying you, AquaFit ladies. I see you meandering through the locker room, dripping water all over the floor, the benches, the counters. I see you emerging from a toilet stall only to find that you've left the whole seat completely soaked with chlorinated water (and God only knows what else). I see you sitting your wet rumps down and not wiping the benches when you get back up...and more than once, I've almost done a nose-first dive into the floor from slipping in the rivers you leave across the locker room because you can't spend five minutes in the pool room toweling off, or a few seconds in the locker room making sure you haven't left a water hazard for the rest of us to risk our necks in. And I have one question for you: Do you do that at home?!


Anyway, I'm sure I'm not perfect, and I know I can get a bit bench-hoggy (we all can, those benches are tiny!), but I really try to share the space and not leave a huge mess behind me. It's odd for me, wearing flip-flops to shower, but it's working out for me to make this part of my routine so I can keep the badass coming (leg-pressed 160 pounds today, woot-woot!), the weight off, and my sanity intact, all while being a great choir teacher, too (that's the goal, "great," not "good").

But the next time the locker room becomes a slimy, smelly, hairy, Slip-'n-Slide, I might just get bratty on you all.

Love,

Meg of the LPB

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I hate it when women who are entering the locker room after a swim fail to take off their swimsuits near the shower-room like they're instructed to do. There is a big sign posted right there as you enter the locker room from the pool stating that you are to take off your wet swimsuit there so you don't track water throughout the rest of the locker room. There have been members that have fallen in the locker room and been injured because they've slipped on water that was tracked through the rest of the locker room from wet swimsuits.