Tuesday, March 25, 2008

I'm cold, put a sweater on. For the love of GOD.

There are several regulars at my gym who are perfectly comfortable wandering nude around the locker room. I am not one of them. I envy them a little, I wish I were so comfortable with myself I could just air dry after my shower. I still use the method I developed in 7th grade gym class of putting my underwear on under my towel and then putting my bra on on top of my towel so that when I am inevitably forced to remove my towel I'm already half dressed. I don't really know why I do this, it's just a habit, but I know other women are like me because when I taught Ann Bushman this method (in 7th grade gym class) she was genuinely grateful.

There's a woman whose workout schedule is about 15 minutes ahead of my own. Each day when I head to the shower, I pass her standing in front of the public vanity stark naked, drying her hair. Today, as I awaited my frothy Starbucks beverage, she came in for a cup o' joe. Because she's usually at the gym before me, I never see her working out. I only see her standing in the locker room naked or, sometimes, getting dressed. As we smiled at each other in greeting it occurred to me that this was the first time I'd ever seen her fully clothed. I couldn't stop myself thinking "I know what kind of underwear you're wearing" because she's always at the undies stage when I'm returning from the shower. The slight awkwardness of it caused me to inadvertently imagine all the Starbuck's customers in their underwear and I knew instantly that using that tactic in attempt to put myself at ease in a public speaking situation would never work for me. It was all too horrible. I looked pleadingly at the barista thinking "just give me the latte, just do it. NOW" and when she finally did, I hustled out into the cold where everyone was wearing bulky coats. What a relief.

13 comments:

Keith said...

For the love of God, WAIT! What kind of underwear was she wearing?!?

sunglasseshurtmynose said...

Next time you have to do any public speaking, think of everyone wearing underwear over a towel.

The Plaid Sheep said...

I agree, I've never understood the whole "imagine people in their underwear" to put yourself at ease. It's more likely to cause you to run screaming into the night.

FlapScrap said...

I like it better when your posts include photos.

Anonymous said...

This is so funny, but a least you only know this woman from the gym. The other day while swimming at the Y, I met a co-worker and her family (husband, son) in the pool. Not five minutes after exiting the pool and beginning my shower (open, communal shower room), my co-worker's husband and son enter. So the three of us standing there naked taking our showers. Needless to say, I avoid my co-worker for the next few days at work.

Anonymous said...

There are women at my gym who probably take the locker room nudity thing to a whole other level beyond that woman you described?

And it's not just a few women, it's a pretty large percentage of the women at my gym.

They will walk around completely nude, blow-dry hair completely nude, put on their makeup nude, stand there having nude conversations, (I've been subjected to having to carry on conversations with totally nude women who struck up a conversation with me)and they will sit in the women's sauna completely nude.

Oh, I forgot, stand there nude while they talk on their cell phones.

In gym class in school we couldn't have done any of the changing tricks that you described. We were required to shower after every gym class, and the showers were wide open group showers where everyone could see everything.

Kathypdwgi

LMP said...

This is hilarious. Maybe I'll start a whole other blog purely on the topic of Gym-Nudity. I could easily hammer out a few posts all about our yoga teacher at the Y, Matt (Yoga Matt)who is shockingly out of shape for someone who teaches yoga all day and who is one of the naked people in the locker room lounge area...

jdrueke said...

I'm sure there are already several sites dedicated to gym nudity. Have your Visa or Mastercard ready. And while in my fantasy world pictures would be great, I'm sure the reality is far more disturbing. I've seen Yoga Matt in the shower too many times and I'm sure his counterpart is in the women's showers. To quote Dane Cook, he's not fat, but he is shapes.

Boomin' Granny said...

This is hilarious! I think this may be the most "comments" to any of your blogs!
I agree, I love it when you post pictures...but, please, not for THIS blog!!

LMP said...

Point of order, mom, the post about Kate's endless Diarrhea netted over 40 comments. Most of them by your poop-loving sons.

Boomin' Granny said...

Mea Culpa! I guess I didn't keep count on that one!!
A mother is NOT responsible for her children's behavior-remember that, you may need it someday.

Anonymous said...

Ha-ha, just about an hour ago it happened to me yet again. There was a 15 year old girl who's on her high schools swim team that was swimming in the pool at our health club at the same time as myself. Her swimsuit said varsity swim team on it, so I asked her which high school she goes to. So we spent a few minutes talking in the pool.

A little while later I headed for the locker room, I was showering off in the communal shower room, and about a minute later this young girl came into the shower room. There were 9 different shower heads that she could have chosen from, but she picked the one next to me, and started another conversation with me. I honestly don't have any problem with seeing other women nude or them seeing me nude, it's a locker room and it's perfectly normal to see nude women in the locker room. But we were both nude at the time, and for me personally there is a difference between catching glimpses of someone else in the locker room as opposed to standing there nude speaking to each other for several minutes.

Anyway, she was a sweet girl, and I enjoyed speaking with her, but I personally am not as open to having nude conversations as many other females are, so it was a little awkward for me in a way.

But I feel a little bad about myself, because I'm thinking to myself that this 15 year old girl has a more mature outlook about nudity in the locker room than I do. In my head I know there's nothing to be embarrassed about when it's only other females, but I sometimes feel insecure.

Kathy

Anonymous said...

I don't know if it's like this everywhere or just at my gym? But I've noticed that all of the Latin and Asian women at my gym are especially open to walking around nude in the locker room. A lot of the white and black women do as well, but I think every Latin or Asian woman at my gym loves to spend a lot of naked time in the locker room.

Christina