Ummm.... Did you drop something?

I recently became a member of the West Suburban YMCA. I love going to the gym, so this is a great way to kill 2 hours a day (I don’t actually workout that strenuously, but I include my post-gym shower in my workout time… it makes me sound tougher).

My new found membership has come with its pros and cons. On the pro side, I'm able to relieve stress and lose those three pounds that plague me and Regina George. It’s close to my house, and the facilities are clean and contain a television in front of a treadmill. Basically, everything I'm looking for in a gym.

In fact, I love the gym so much that it’s taken me a while to find a con (and as much as I enjoy complaining about everything that is no small feat on the part of the YMCA). However, today I found one… So I get a 3 hour break at work (which is another debacle in and of itself), and I decide that I'm going to head to the gym. Run on the treadmill for an hour and be back in time for noon conference. The entire thing was uneventful, I went to the gym, changed, ran, and went to the showers (and no it’s not what you’re thinking… well it might be, but that depends on how your mind works). I finish washing up and begin my 10 minute rinse (or as my dad calls it “water wasting”). As I'm minding my own business looking straight ahead at a very nondescript tan tile at eye level, I notice something moving rapidly just 2 showers down to my right. Well my number one rule of showering in a public place is NEVER, NEVER, NEVER under any circumstances let someone get the drop on you in the shower. So I instinctively turn my head toward the disturbance. Imagine how shocked I was when I saw a guy about my age, doing toe touches in the shower. Seriously, he was my age… (not an old guy who could use senility or lack of social inhibitions as an excuse). I didn’t know what to do… I panicked and yelled “FIRE!!!” Not really, but can you imagine a fireman who wouldn’t have been on my side if I explained to him why I caused a panic which led to the trampling of some decrepit octogenarian? I can’t… and honestly that feeling of helplessness to stop the situation, hurts more than the mental pictures burned into my brain of the naked-stretcher! (and that's saying something!)