The Change in the Changing Room Part 3

More revelations from the dark recesses of the male changing room...and other loosely related stuff.

The thing I like most about my gym, well, actually, the only thing I like about my gym (given that just about everything is designed to be a refined form of torture for which I pay a small fortune every month) is the pool. I do like to swim at the end of a gym session. Not because I am an ace swmimmer, oh no. Mostly because it means that all the nasty stuff is over and done with and, bar drowning, not much else can go wrong.

What really intrigues me about the pool are the various types that frequent it. By this I don't mean the dedicated, sub-Olympic types who dash up and down the 'fast' lane. I mean the odd people, such as

1. Groups having a Gossip

Why do people do this? Groups of people will gather at one end of the pool and stand and chat, completely oblivious to the fact that this effectively closes off one side of the pool to those of us monotonously paddling up and down. From time to time they will either all get out and head off to the jacuzzi or steam room, or they will suddenly set off in a flotilla to the other end of the pool where they will stop and natter for ages again.

2. Walkers (no, walkers, do read more carefully)

I presume this must be a new form of aerobic exercise? From time to time my feeble swimming (which is essentially like someone having a fit underwater) will be overtaken by someone striding purposefully along the pool, which is quite unnerving. My favourite of these was a bloke who always looked to me as if he should have a rolled up newspaper under his arm. I think it was the side parting and glasses that did it. All he was really short of was the bowler hat. He reminded me of a very well prepared banker caught in a sudden disastrous flood.

3. Little Old Blokes Who Are Better Swimmers Than Me

Actually, this isn't so much a category as one person, and he annoys the hell out of me. I think he spends 50% of his time on cruises and the other half in the pool at my gym, given the deep and even tan he sports. What narks me is that he swims along, making no apparent effort, but leaves me standing (well, sinking really). And he does it all wrong as well! He keeps his head permanently out of the water so that his immaculately coiffured pure white hair does not get a drop of water on it, and yet he still leaves me floundering. Okay, now just breathe normally and calm down, you're frightening the readers.

Right, I'm off to the showers now and I'll bet you any money that, even if every cubicle is empty, some damn fool will insist on taking their shower in the cubicle right next to mine. I appear to be a magnet for them, which I may discuss again at some time in the future - watch this space!

The first collection of stories - "Steady Past Your Granny's" is now available in Kindle e-book format at Amazon UK and Amazon USA

The Wind in the Hollows

I've noticed a rather disturbing tendency amongst men of a 'certain age' to do things in the gym changing room that one would hope they would not do even in the privacy (or privy as Benny Hill used to memorably say) of their own homes.

I'm talking principally about (and readers of a nervous disposition may turn away now) the drying of one's important little places with a hair dryer. Why would anyone want to do this? Is it some misguided attempt to smooth out the wrinkles? If this is the case, I have to say they are definitely barking up the wrong tree. I doubt if the combined skills of Elizabeth Arden, Nivea and Oil of Olay (why did that stop being Ulay, by the way?)could ever smooth out the deep wrinkles surrounding the geriatric gonads. Perhaps we worry more down there?

There is certainly something deeply disturbing about watching pensioners, legs akimbo, fanning their genitalia with warm breezes. It certainly (if somewhat illogically) puts you off using said hair dryers for their actual purpose.

Of course, odd and possibly unhygienic behaviour is not just limited to the silver surfers. This morning I witnessed the unedifying sight of young chap clipping his toenails in the washbasin. Whilst you have to applaud the flexibility that allowed him to do this, you would really rather it wasn't happening at all.

Somehow, I can't imagine this sort of thing happens in the ladies locker rooms but maybe you can tell me otherwise?