No one wants to shower in a stall smeared in another man’s shit.

When I walked into the 24 Hour Fitness at 9:00pm on a Friday, my goal was to get in and out quickly. The gym is sparsely attended at this hour, with most members opting to be elsewhere, likely engaging in some activity counterproductive to their health. I saw this as a great time to get in and out easily, unlike my normal pre- or post-workday rush hours when the locker rooms are packed with 9-5’ers. And in a way, I got what I expected.

Overflowing towel hamper in seemingly abandoned locker room.

The locker room was a veritable ghost town. I was accompanied only by two other men, a white-haired toothpick of a man whom I’ve seen on multiple occasions fall asleep on the core strengthening room mats, and an aging, dreadlocked white guy in spandex who only seems to use the stair-stepper. I could only assume these were fellow home-freepersons. Older men living out their days on the fringes, in a climate and culture indifferent enough to tolerate them.

As I prepared myself for the quick shower, I was reminded that said indifference had infected the 24 Hour Fitness staff. Dirty complimentary towels piled up in corner hampers, under changing room benches, and across hallway floors. The way my people use these gym-provided towels has always disgusted me. While some of us prefer to use these towels for their intended purpose–to wipe the sweat off our faces during a grueling workout or dry off after a hot shower–others chose to get more creative. They use towels as floormats, as rags to scrub the bottom of their dirty shoes, as handkerchiefs for their bloody noses. Direct, disgusting, shameless. But nothing was as Bukowskian as what I was about to see.

Looks like it’s time for this shower room’s annual cleaning.

I tried to ignore the odor as I walked into the main shower room. The bathing area is separate from the shitting area, so the wafting scent of excrement came as a surprise to me. I immediately checked myself for rogue traces of fecal matter, but found myself smelling no worse than the average writer. Since I was rushing, I headed into the first stall, hoping to escape the stench with a quick wash. When I reached the first stall, I found it was missing a showerhead. Strike One.

As I left that stall, I remembered having walked into it last week and made the same discovery. I guess a missing showerhead falls short of the “emergency maintenance” designation. I suppose for those of us accustomed to bathing with a garden hose, it’d be a relative luxury. I am not one of those people. Even the home-free lifestyle has its limits.

As I moved on to the next stall, the stink of crap grew stronger. My sense of urgency increased with every breath of putrid air, each gasp accompanied by the horrifying visual of some stranger’s shitstain lining the sacks of my lungs. Must. Get. Out. Yet when I arrived to Door Number Two, the damn thing was missing its soap container.

Does no one repair anything in this place?

Panic was beginning to set in. With every inoperable stall I entered, I inched closer and closer to the unfortunate reality of becoming the first man ever to dry-drown in another man’s shit. But I really needed this shower. So I pressed on.

I almost wish I hadn’t.

What I found in Stall Number Three will stick with me for a lifetime. With the door to the stall ajar, I almost passed it by. But at that point the excrement scent had grown so strong I began to fear I might faint. So I grabbed the handle and noticed that the water inside the stall was on full blast. Yet no one was in it. Strange, I thought, that someone would be so wasteful as to leave the water running like that. I stared at the showerhead for a moment, noting the steam rising from its porous lens. I held my breath as I surveyed the scene. Hot water, check. Operable showerhead, check. Full soap container, check. Human feces on the floor of the–wait…

I call this work “Human Shit in Stall Number Three”

Someone shit himself in the shower. A man. A grown, adult man.

Then he ran off.

Then no one cleaned it up.

Then I came and took a picture of it. Ten minutes later.

I took a shower (in another stall, thank you very much), toweled off (with my own towel, thank you very much), and captured the above images. During that time, no one had come to resolve the issue. What exactly was everyone on staff doing? I started to wonder if it was them who had shit in the stall. Like they had some kind of contest going to see which Friday night staffperson could shit in the most absurd place. I quickly dressed and headed down to the front desk to look into it.

The “Welcome Desk”. Guess the on-duty staff was off crapping on a bosu ball when I came looking for him.

No one was manning the desk. Not only were half of the shower stalls in the place broken in some way, one of them being used as a temporary bed pan, but I wasn’t even afforded the luxury to complain about it. Instead I left wondering what stunk worse, the shit-stink air of the men’s locker room showers or the gross incompetence of the 24 Hour Fitness management. I figured it was a wash.*

I wish I had some kind of moral or dénouement to present after this story, but I don’t. Rather than talk about missing the cleanliness of home bathing (I don’t) or the yearning for the privacy of showering in your own place (I’ve adapted) or the reliability of having hot water and a shower head (I’m over it), I guess I’ll just say this: If you ever lose control of your bowels in a public setting of any sort, there is only one this I ask: Please clean up your shit.

I don’t feel like that’s too much to ask.

Thanks!

– TOH

*Pun intended.