This blog chronicles my life as I try to balance healthy lifestyle habits with my husband's penchant for pizza rolls and my daughter's desire to watch iCarly 8 hours a day. It contains a mostly humorous, kind, and somewhat spiritual look at everyday life and the people who live it.

Friday, February 26, 2010

Bad Naked

There was a Seinfeld episode in which Jerry's girlfriend loved to walk around naked.  At first this seemed like a really good thing until Jerry saw her performing such tasks as opening a pickle jar or coughing -- then he realized that there could actually be Bad Naked.

I didn't need an old sitcom to tell me what I already knew from spending a little time in my gym's locker room.  There's a lot of Bad Naked going on there.  It seems the over 70 bunch is most inclined to stroll around naked in the locker room.  There are a few sightings burned in my brain that I would like to share:

Sighting 1: Bad Naked in the Shower
Okay, legitimate question: how did I happen to see another woman in the shower?  Well, while searching for an empty shower I usually go by the old standbys: sight and sound.  If the shower looks empty and I don't hear any water running I think, okay, this shower is empty.  Not so with this particular woman.  For reasons unknown to me the outer changing room curtain was left open.  No items were in the outer area.  No water was running.  So when I entered the outer area, humming a little tune for courage ('cause you know I hate showering at the gym) and then yanked open the inner curtain I was shocked to see one of the over 70 crowd plastered up against the shower stall wall (actually letting her skin touch that wall!) and gaping back at me.  "Oh!  Excuse me!"  I stammered as I fled the area, the image of a lot of loose skin and veins spread eagled up against the wall burned in my brain.  Bad Naked, I was thinking.  Looking horrified definitely makes for Bad Naked.

Sighting 2: Bad Naked at Eye Level
Like the good-little-gym-rule-follower-that-I-am I always change my shoes before entering the gym proper.  This means sitting down on the little benches provided in the locker room.  This means that anyone standing up has the potential for a lot of Bad Naked right at eye level.  One day whilst I innocently was lacing up my shoes unbeknownst to me a woman, about my age, had walked from the showers, completely naked, and had decided to put on lotion.  Right next to me.  Bent over.  I glanced up from my shoes when I sensed someone close by only to be greeted with a rectum about 4 inches from my face.  I shot off that bench and out of the locker room like I was being shot out of a cannon.  Bad Naked!  What the heck?  What kind of twisted person do you have to be to bend over like that?  Bad, Bad, Naked!

Sighting 3: Bad Naked with a Towel
This was another 40 something woman, in good shape, but still Bad Naked.  On the day in question this woman walked back from the shower with one towel around her body and one towel around her head, turban style.  Completely reasonable, right?  Unfortunately she didn't get dressed before deciding to vigorously towel dry her hair.  She's standing, again right next to me (in her defense it is a small locker room), when she wips the towel off her head, flips her head down, and begins to vigorously dry her hair with the towel.  Too bad the towel around her body wasn't secured better because it immediately falls down leaving me with an up-close view of vigorous-hunched-over-naked-shaking.  It's Bad Naked folks, no matter how toned you are, it's Bad Naked.

There's no judging here.  Bad Naked is Bad Naked.  When I sneezed yesterday just as I was about to get into the shower, I knew even without the bathroom mirror telling me so: it was Bad Naked.

2 comments:

Deb said...

Lets be honest- the only good kind of naked going on when you get to a certain age is only in the dark with the one you love...

That being said- I still have traumatic thoughts from my freshman year of college- it was a group shower. Yes- I said group shower. All kinds of bad naked going on there- I shutter to think of the girl who would brush her teeth in the shower with others and spit into the communal drain...bad naked and bad taste!

karen@fitnessjourney said...

You have witnessed far worse bad naked than I. However, I do have one story to tell. There was a woman, I'll guess, about 70ish, at the gym sitting directly on the wooden bench in front of the lockers, buck naked. No towel in sight. GROSS! Does she realize that sometimes I set my gym bag on that bench?

I remember my mom telling me that there was a woman at the gym once-incredible body, but that doesn't matter-who would blow dry her hair completely nude except for boots. Exhibitionism at its finest.