Naked in the Gym

Two of the CrankyChicks periodically visit the gym in order to avoid literally becoming too big for our britches. While our regular visits are helping us with the cardio thing and the muscle thing, they have also exposed us to some pretty weird naked behavior in the ladies’ locker room. And we are not happy about it.

So far, we’ve seen far more of some gym rats’ naked bodies than we have of our own. This is unpleasant and leads us to believe that there are some basic rules of etiquette associated with locker room nakedness that these people are either willfully ignoring or are unaware of.

OK – you’re in the locker room to shower and change. Some nakeness is expected. Once your street clothes or your disgusting, sweaty gym clothes are off, you are going to be naked. But there is no reason to prance around like that. You do not need to lean against the wall and chat while naked. There is no reason to wash your face naked (and the bending over is particularly icky). And blow-drying your hair naked is just exhibitionism.

Then, there’s other weird stuff. CrankyFashionChick will swear on a stack of Tim Gunn’s Guide to Styles that she saw a woman pull her underpants down underneath her butt and THEN rummage through her locker and stop for a drink of water. Why would you do that? It was one awful, pale, cellulite-laden, flat butt, too.

She has also witnessed a woman butt-naked doing stretches in the steam room. Not just little arm stretches, either. NO, I’m talking about lying-on-your-back-one-leg-down-the-other-in-the-air-showing-the-whole-world-what’s-usually-reserved-for-your-gynecologist stretches. Ugh!

And CrankyFashionChick’s FAVORITE was the lunatic woman who, after showering and drying off, put on her underpants, tights, kilt, boots and pearl necklace and then proceeded to blowdry her hair. Notice anything missing from this picture?

CrankyCheeseCurlChick swears she made it out in the nick of time last night. She has learned to head straight to her specific locker after a workout and not dilly dally trying to remember which locker she stashed her stuff in. It's the dallying that gets her in trouble. The nakeds dilly dally. With naked friends sometimes. It's most disturbing, especially when they hide behind corners and then pop out - "Ta-Da, look at me I've got no pants on... And no shirt... And no bra... And no unders... Just me, rummaging through my purse, looking for my keys or my cellphone, or my ipod. Bare-ass-naked. Wait, wait, I'll turn around so you can get the full view..."

CrankyCheeseCurlChick winces at these encounters. It makes her a little bit afraid of the gym on the inside. Not because she's a prude, but because seriously these are scary nakeds. A gym membership does not double as a nudist club pass. Good naked includes a towel wrapped around your privates while you go about your business. Bad naked is sitting your bare butt down on the same bench where SOME people used to place their water bottle or jacket to rest. And lingering there for a few minutes while you figure out why you're just hanging out in the locker room with no clothes on, la-dee-dah.

And so last night, CrankyCheeseCurlChick caught a brief glimpse of naked coming around the corner aimlessly and bolted out of the locker room before suffering any additional mental and emotional anguish.

So, naked people, stop it now! We beg of you!