A Brief And Pointless Rant About Locker Room Behavior

Also A Spitter

I work out, because that's what my brain and body chemistry allow, something like 6 out of every 7 days or so. I do so at any number of gyms, because I do ride share for extra money, and have a membership with a chain that has something like 50 locations in the greater metropolitan area. (When you do ride share, you can be, well, anywhere. The job flexibility isn't exactly total. Also, the gym membership means I always have a bathroom I can use within range. Moving on.)

In nearly every one of these gyms, after nearly every one of these workouts, I shower. I sweat a lot as a general rule, and to catch up to my goals for the year, I have to go pretty hard. What I encounter in the shower is, more often than not, this:

Some dude making ridiculous throat noises in some other shower. Which echo in the valley, and rattle in the dell, and happen so often that when it *doesn't* occur now, I notice.

It would be one thing if it were old guys with respiratory problems. But the folks in my gyms are 95% younger than me, because I tend to go later at night, when older guys are long gone. These are young uns who think that spitting is the new peeing to mark their territory, or maybe the ghosts of previous members trying to clear their spectral systems of unholy phlegm... no idea. It's not like I'm going to go find the perp and tell him, um, dude?

YOU ARE FREAKING DISGUSTING YOU ARE NOT IN A PRIVATE PLACE PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD KNOCK IT THE HELL OFF SOME OF US ARE JUST TRYING TO WASH OFF THE STINK AND GET OUT OF HERE WITHOUT THINKING ABOUT WHATEVER HORROR IS IN YOUR GODDAMN THROAT AND NOW ON THE FLOOR WHERE I HAVE TO WALK I THINK I'M GOING TO BE SICK

(breathes)

Honestly, I try to remain open minded. The older I get, the more the temptation to judge everything that is younger than you as Going To Hell In A Handbasket goes off the charts, and that way lies Grumpy Old Man Codgerdom. I don't want to be that guy. It's a daily war to fight that urge, especially when I'm driving around picking up rando ride sharing strangers and trying to be pleasant as people who are young enough to my kids pule about stuff that should barely matter to them, let alone the people who you temp hire to schlep you around. I also have a pretty low bar for locker room decorum. All I want is to get out of there before someone starts babbling about politics, or his workout, or whatever.

But... Jebus... Seriously...

Can y'all please stop treating a shared public space like it's a hated rival on the battlefield? Or maybe just learn that the rules for You Are In Public are different than No One Can See Or Hear You?