Republished from Vernacular Nicely Said #55
Hello, dear readers and pool changing room enthusiasts
I’ve written before about the surprising habits on display in swimming pool changing rooms.
No, I’m not looking, but some things can’t be unseen. The violation of hair drier etiquette and the quizzical sight of a lone satisfied gent slobbering a bowl of noodles between bare bottoms and their bent over owners snatching up Speedos.
Sometimes things get out of hand. Earlier this year, Remuera accountant Chong Yew Khoo was sentenced for recording hundreds of males in the very changing room I have bared my bottom bits. He had captured intimate visual recordings of nearly 400 males.
Given my almost daily trips to this establishment I imagine select parts of me are in the offender’s photo library. Perhaps I was his screen saver, my ego offers? My wife assures me that few if any parts of me are desirable or deserving of photography. But what about the judicious application of a flesh-enhancing filter, I enquire? Surely that would keep me in the mix. You must hang on to these bare threads of hope.
I wonder if prosecutors presented Khoo’s photographic handiwork as evidence? Who else has examined me in my vulnerable, unknowing moments? Did they recoil? Sob? Raise their eyebrows and nod approvingly? Is that a full moon, a total eclipse, God forbid – Uranus? These things I will never know.
The accountant is sorry. I suggest his client meetings have never been the same. The elephant in the room sways nervously in the corner, his agitated trunk waves a tea towel in a desperate attempt to keep elephant privates private.
I haven’t been discouraged by these shenanigans. Many faces still smile at me (in the right kind of way), especially as I do laps in the aqua jogging lane. We’re like ducks, all elegance on top, a wild flurry of legs and feet underneath. Males are a rare thing in this lane. I’m a novelty, appreciating the polite smiles fixed below perfectly coifed hair treated in ways that repel water. What do these ladies use – and are they leaving a trail of forever chemicals in my pool lane? I know their names – surnames at least, because they are written in large block letters on the back of their buoyancy vests.
And now to the spa pool. A row of sweaty eyeless faces dozing in that warm bubbling luxury. Up to their chins. Some wear a flannel on their head. Is that a bar of soap? I’ll slot in there and sink down into the line-up.
Soon I am losing the fight to keep my head stable on its shoulders. Asleep I fall and I give thanks for the mammalian reflex that jolts me awake when my face slaps the water. Good Lord. Did anyone witness that? Then I did it again. Three times. Part of me wishes I had bought soap and a Bic razor. I could slide down and disappear under the surface like a crocodile, skin ripe for a close shave in that deliciously warm water. Such thoughts must never become actions.
A hot spa is just the thing before taking a sauna. It raises your core temperature so you leak like a sieve the second you enter and seat yourself between freshly wetted outlines of buttocks. A particularly old lady with bowed legs must navigate a step to exit. I offer my hand and she shakes her head indignantly and waves me off. Was she saying: “How dare you think that I need your help?” Or just “Get out of my way, fool.” She manages the step herself and gives me a polite nod when done.
I steal a glance to gauge the reaction of the chap to my right. But he’s lying down. He lifts a cheek and trumpets a fart. What is he trying to tell me?
On my left a woman in a floral shower cap sits Buddha-like and hums an exotic tune that sounds like she has a zither stuck in her throat. No clues.
So I put my head in my hands and watch the waterfall of sweat from my head spatter on the floor where it joins the salty beads of so many others. And I recoil at the smell of the sauna’s open drain ferrying all these toxic excretions through a despairing hole in the floor. That drain really does stink. I mentioned it on a feedback form asking me to rate my customer experience. There was no 5-star scale for odious smells. Thankfully there was a text box at the end of the survey asking if there was anything else I would like to add.
I’m still waiting for a reply.
Keep reading, magnificent humans.