Tuesday, February 14, 2006

In the Locker-room – the Secret Life of a Man with Peripheral vision

The only exercise I ever get is about half an hour’s worth of swimming a week. Obviously I go in the men’s changing room (note Americanism in the title, sorry chaps – not folks note – but chappesses can’t be right). Anyway, I can’t work out the conventions of these places and why I’m mildly disturbed by the various ‘behaviours’ that go on there. Leaving aside aggressive scrotal towelling, tell me why this lot seem just wrong somehow....

A naked man standing at the urinal holding a swimming hat in his right hand and a pair of goggles in his left. Why do I feel he should have saved a hand to point or ‘guide’ as it were? Why does having a wee completely naked also seem wrong?

A fully clothed man at the same urinal. No offences of the hand to start with. However this man is overdressed for urination. Now if he was outside then maybe. But no, he’s inside - stood at the urinal in a big puffa jacket with big puffa sleeves nearly covering his big puffa hands. Should I insist he takes his coat off to wee? Mind you, he didn’t wash his hands so its smeggy doorknobs all the way home then?

A man standing weeing in the shower. It goes down the same hole so why don’t I like it? Has anyone written the Etiquette of Weeing? or is there a gap in the market? Can men go to Swiss finishing schools to learn how to walk with books on their head and how to get into a Mini without gusset glimpsing embarrassment? – and how to wee in a manful but respectable way? I suspect not, unfortunately we live in a fallen world. Do women still get to go?

This is an ‘incidentally’ but provides secret information for women and advice for some men: Obviously men really shouldn’t wear shorts, but if one does and one uses one of those big flat stainless steel urinals (as opposed to the individual pot sorts) one gets ones legs sprayed with (primarily) ones own urine. This means that when you don’t wear shorts you’re spraying your trousers! Yewch!

This is of course only a small glimpse into the world of weeing. If only I had more time....I'm wasted here.

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