At what age does it become optional to wear clothing in a locker room? Or maybe the correct question is at what age does one stop caring about basic modesty? Probably different for all, and might be correlated to early onset dementia (not proven, but likely). I started thinking about all of these important life questions today after a morning swim.

Upon entering the locker room I was met with the normal host of individuals doing various activities, some not critical to be done in a workout facility locker room such as shaving, listening to an ipod, reading the newspaper. The manner in which people utilize a locker room is interesting as well. There was a skinny-legged, thick in the upper body 20 year old guy, who looked like he just completed the beach workout (bi’s, tri’s, pecks, and abs) followed by a 3 minute sprint on the treadmill to work up a sweat, who was changing directly into dress pants and a shirt without showering or so much as washing off the gym grime and sweat. Pretty typical for this age demographic (think middle school gym class; everyone is beginning to smell like a foot after running around for 45 minutes but no one would dare change pants without leaving their shirt on which was long enough to cover the knees. Then there’s me, who showered in the speedo and luckily no one else was around to stand next to me in the stall-less communal shower and thrust his pelvis out into the common space while bending over backwards to wash his hair.

Then back in the locker area (still hate that word) there is the 70 year old gentleman who is letting it all hang out without concern that others are around or that he may be able to rearrange the order in which he gets ready for the office to better account for WEARING CLOTHING!!!! But no. While I was drying off, getting dressed, putting on shoes, styling my hair, and getting my nails did, he performed the following grooming routines sans garments: brush teeth, floss teeth, lotion arms, lotion legs (requires bending over with unfortunately his back NOT to the wall), baby powder certain regions, deodorant, style hair, stretch (one leg up on the bench, one on the ground, get the hip flexer real good), and finally I left because I didn’t pay for the rest of the show.

Great start to the day overall. Wish I had one of those mind-eraser-thingies from Men In Black…