After a week showering at the local Family YMCA, my free trial membership there came to an end. The time had come for me to find another gym.

I had actually grown fond of my routine at the Y. I had learned how to avert my eyes from geriatric ball-sacks and navigate the oblique corridors. The tiny hallway of elliptical machines suited the ephemeral nature of my cardio workouts, and the unassuming climate of the place, from the cordial staff to the low locker room lighting, kept my visits focused and free of the anxiety I had anticipated after my initial day (outlined in the post “Shower Time“).

I was actually going to miss showering there.

So when it came time to pick another gym, I decided to go with another YMCA. This required a much longer drive, but it was the next-closest YMCA to my new office home. This facility, I would soon find, is the Mecca to fitness shitholes all across the globe.

My first indication of its lowly quality was its yelp rating, an innocuous three stars. The first less-than-flattery review I read set the tone for the rest:

“UGH, I’d happily write a better review for this Y, if they would actually process my application for membership. However, their complete baffoonery (sic) gets in the way.”

Since I’m always up for an adventure, I didn’t let this deter me.

I was far from disappointed. When I arrived, meandering into the lobby with a trial membership form in hand and a quizzical look in my eye, there were three employees behind the desk, one of whom was actually in uniform. The other two were shirtless. One of the shirtless boys, perhaps a freshman in college, punched the other as he implored the uniformed young woman to agree with him on some matter involving the television show “The Voice”. Not having watched “The Voice”, I thought it presumptuous to assume that my membership registration should in fact be prioritized over the presiding opinion of Cee Lo.

After two or three minutes of this kind of welterweight back-and-forth, one shirtless jab returned courtesy of a uniformed comment about the promiscuity of Christina Aguilera, I stepped in with a verbal uppercut that interrupted this spontaneous choreography of dumb.

“Excuse me,” I interjected. “Where is the men’s locker room?”

Cue the screeching halt of a record player. The two shirtless boys instantly turned their attention towards themselves, ignoring me and the uniformed girl. The young woman, shifting slightly in her chair, looked up at me mutely and cocked her head vaguely to the side, as if she were a rawhide-chewing dachshund whose owner just asked her if she wanted to go for a walk. I half expected to see a tail wagging behind her.

“I have a trial membership form here,” I said, hoping to snap her out of it.

This seemed to do the trick, as she lumbered through some nearby papers, creating a dust cloud in the process of finding me a facility-specific follow-up form. She hushed a bothered, “Fill this out,” before turning her attention back on the bare abdomens behind her. I completed the form and interjected once again for directions to the locker room.

“Through the pool,” she said tersely, nodding in the direction of the glass door to my left. She hadn’t even bothered to turn around. I wondered if I’d even needed to check in with her.

The pool was in a whole separate area than the rest of the facility. So if one wanted to use the locker room before a workout, he first had to traverse the pool deck. Here he might find a lifeguard on duty, one fixated more intently to what appeared to be a very underage girl than the pool’s elderly patrons. My new gym: Where supervision comes to die.

Once inside the locker room, one comes face-to-face with a miniature maze of tiny rooms, many of which have a single toilet, and all of which were pooled with old, murky shower water. Finding my way to the hub of the tiled space, I could see that the intention was for the water to be drained into a single, solitary grate at the epicenter of the collection of rooms. This hub also acted not only as the main drainage area, but also as the main hallway. One could not enter or exit the locker room without taking an unobstructed look at all of the shower’s inhabitants.

I could have accepted all of this if, thanks to having been indoctrinated over the past week in the art of wincing through elderly balls and ass, the locker room would’ve been limited to access by grown men. But life had other plans for me. No, this was not just a men’s locker room, but a family locker room as well.

Turning the corner to the main shower room, I was greeted by the much disquieting sight of a naked brother and sister, between the ages of seven and ten, staring up at me from under the faucets. Nothing gets me quite as uncomfortable as unsupervised children, particularly strange unsupervised children without clothes on. So I kindly excused myself and hustled around her, averting my gaze as much as I could without risking a cartoon-like slip at the hands of the backwashed delta of puddles.

Having successfully warded off the specter of extended time spent with the unclad elementary creatures, I found my way to the locker portion of the locker room. Much to my chagrin, this was also inhabited by children—two to be precise, presumably of the same French father. (I thought the French had more refined taste than slums this.) I danced my gaze away from the family and surveyed the room. It resembled a staging quarters for some PAL league football team. The kind of place where young men would huddle together at halftime, hold their bladder and listen intently as Coach Gill gives an inspirational speech about blood and guts and bulging testicles.

The only motivator I had on that day was a mild, niggling odor and a two-day old film of Unclean about my outer parts. Maybe that’s not true. I was motivated—motivated to get the hell out of that locker room. With it’s molding carpet floor and rusted, some-broken Nixon-era lockers and well-lit walls of chipped paint, this place hardly resembled anything I’d call home. I gathered my shower materials and headed back through the maze of my own antipathy.

I was pleased to find that, among the open room of shower heads, there was something there that hadn’t registered with me before: A solitary spigot reserved for private bathing. Enveloped in an awful beige curtain (by the way, why is it that tags always show so prominently on shitty housewares? Just me?) and a partial handicapped railing, this was the ideal staging area for my routine. Well, ideal under the conditions. Which were horrifying.

Halfway through my hustle to get clean, a group of early pubescent voices flooded into the locker room to inhabit the showers. I wasn’t sure at first if one was a girl—he had an regrettably high voice—but after a round of dude/man/bro/etc. references, I figured these were boys. Their presence further reinforced my already familiar ill-ease. At the precise moment I began to work the soap over my genitals, I noticed an approaching shadow, accompanied the high-pitched voice.

“Hey guys, is someone in this one?”

I was aghast. Anyone that’s spent time around teens knows their fearlessness. They act on impulse, a sheer primordial emotion that, when left raw and untreated, can turn easily into hazardous ruffiandom. I was once myself one of these terrible adolescent creatures, having earned myself the reputation for obscenity and embarrassing acts. Whether it was placing my bare buttocks against the window of a tour bus for our sister group to see or leaning garbage cans full of water against people’s doors before knocking and running away, I was well aware what the power of unchecked testosterone could accomplish. In short, these young people are ruthless and aggressive. And everyone is vulnerable to their wrath. Especially those who are pantsless.

So I stood stiff as this teenage thing approached my little shower sanctuary, frozen in a moment of terror, defenseless to the whims of a privacy pirate half my age and legally considered a child. I was unsure whether to call out to the menace and expose my presence, or remain still and pray to be left alone.

“Aww, that’s my favorite shower.”

I felt it’s hand brush up against the outer edge of the curtain. My eyes bulged, and I prepared my defenses, which consisted of a horror film screech and a distracting heave of my travel-size shampoo bottle. I could run. Yes, I could dart out from behind the curtain, maybe knocking one of them down in the fray, making a bee-line escape directly to wasteline amnesty, directly to my lockered pants.

Then, just as I had laid plans to flee, something amazing happened.

It backed off.

I was free. Liberated from the fickle advance of the curious teen.

They had left the showers. I was alone again. So I finished up hastily, quick to avoid another potential encounter with the family locker room natives, and got myself clothed in record time. I was superficially clean, but spiritually tarred. This wasn’t a place I could shower comfortably. I’d have to seriously consider alternative bathing options.

Or maybe just shower early in the morning, when most teenagers are still hibernating.

– TOH