Yard Sale

Recently Brad and I decided to go to the gym together. I usually try to get my workout in during the week at 9am, after the morning rush has departed. I like to avoid waiting for a machine and something else that happens in the locker room that both Brad and I call “The Yard Sale”. Generally “Yard Sale” means that somebody can’t seem to contain their personal belongings inside the locker room. I’ll illustrate this scenario for you. I’m pretty sure that this probably happens inside of a women’s locker room too, but I have never confirmed that women are as piggish as men, so I can only speak from my male perspective.

A member has completed his workout and has returned to the locker room to shower. He will open his locker and it’s contents will quickly colonize the bench. (a bench that is for all members). He will then proceed to the shower and leave behind a pair of dirty sneakers, together with a pair of dress or street shoes that he means to wear out of the gym after he has showered. Also left behind are his dirty socks and his pair of dirty underwear left inside the shorts that he was wearing to work out in. Used towels are strewn about and there is an open gym bag on the floor. Sometimes the locker is open to reveal a coat, some clean clothes, and a little sack for grooming products, shaving cream, deodorant, etc. All of this is left behind while he showers with no concern that anybody else might also need to use that space. It’s like the person has no concept that there is anybody else in the world. It’s his own private locker room. It makes me crazy.

I guess I can leave room for the activity that goes on in the sauna because it’s in a contained space that I don’t use. However, I do feel sorry for those members that truly do want to use the sauna for the purpose of relaxing and not for random hookups that are so frequently posted on Craigslist under “Missed Connections”. *uses fingers to express quotes* What I’m going to tell you about today is perhaps the strangest behavior that I’ve witnessed in the locker room yet. One day, sitting there on the edge of a bench, absolutely naked, was a man that had to be approaching 70. Not at all in any decent shape he was carrying an enormous pot belly. He looked like a snake that had just finished swallowing a rat. He had his legs crossed and was very casually reading the paper like he was at the Century Association. Devil may care that he was buck naked and no show pony. The locker room was buzzing around him and it didn’t seem to phase him in the least. I let out a laugh straight away and motioned toward the naked newspaper reader with my chin while looking at Brad. Brad made a face that kids make when something is sour. What is going through the minds of people who are doing these sorts of things? Yard sales and naked newspaper reading. Naked shavers and naked nail clipping. Do I need to mention that they leave their nail particles behind for somebody to step or sit on? How about the people who sprinkle what looks to be corn starch all over the floor and leave white foot prints behind. ??? It’s madness. I think these people might think that their mothers are going to come through and pick up after them. I can’t figure it out. I used to think that I might say something to them, but who knows how people are going to respond to that sort of commentary. I've learned to just make jokes about what I'm seeing and now I guess I'm writing about it too.

-R