I was at the gym Wednesday, because I still do that twice a week even though my knees sound like 15 pounds of balled-up cellophane being run over by a Subaru Impreza every time I flex them under load.* I'm not bragging about my workout regularity as I'm still alarmingly fatter than I would like to be/am used to being. It turns out that the things you did your whole life to regulate your weight stop working right around the time you turn 50. Your prize for surviving half a century is a closet full of large-size T-shirts that no longer fit comfortably. Congratulations.
I don't spend a lot of time in locker rooms as a rule. It's not that I'm worried some old timer is going to go sauntering through after a shower with his towel inexplicably over his shoulder (although this happens, please see the previous very correct use of "inexplicably") or anything like that, I just find them to be kind of gross in the specific way a perpetually damp** environment overcrowded with a bunch of dewy, sheen-y humans sharing surfaces without the prophylactic benefits of a full complement of outerwear can be. It's a microclimate more suited to fungi than mammals, which is why it's always also your best opportunity to catch whatever the trendiest new strain of athlete's foot the kids are passing around these days.
There's really no need for me to go into a locker room as I don't shower at the gym (see above re: athlete's foot). I stick to the organized fitness classes, and most people there just bring their little pile of stuff and set it alongside the workout area, but I will admit it, I love a locker. A little temporary space set aside in a very organized and numbered line of similar regimented spaces that I can have all for myself; the securing of said space with a dinky four-number combination padlock... I find it all very satisfying. This is taking into account that my padlock could be cracked by someone with either about 12 minutes to spare or anything over 135 lbs of bodyweight to put into a heel kick, so sure, it's security theater like the way they look in your bag before you enter a baseball stadium. And we all pay for the same gym, so it's not like there's a ring of locker thieves we have to worry about. Half the people there just toss their hoodie into a locker without bothering to add a lock, knowing it will be there when they get done, but that's them opting to miss out on the ka-thunk of applying or undoing the padlock. Theirs is a life devoid of joy.
I'm in and out pretty fast usually, and I'm certainly not paying any attention to anyone else while I'm in there. I step around the guys posing in the floor-length mirrors, I let the gaggle of dudes carrying on a long conversation about uh "supplements" into the steam room pass, I get my ka-thunk and I'm gone. Wednesday, however, a raised voice caught my attention. It was going on in a very familiar locker-room masculine way of peacocking in front of other men in one of our favorite genres, the "if they woulda tried that with me, I woulda..." story formula, always delivered in a place of safety miles away (literally and situationally) from whatever hypothetical they are fantasizing about insta-solving with an act of defiant violence.
In this case, he was going on about something I took the time to look up, this story about how a gang of Venezuelan illegals absolutely did not and never did take over an apartment building in Aurora, Colorado. In the least surprising twist ever, he then pivoted to how it will all be taken care of "come Election Day" when Trump sweeps into office and bonks all the Spanish-speaking people in America over the head with a big bonking stick, throws them in a bag and tosses them some indeterminate distance south toward CancĂșn or wherever, over and past the wall that was never actually built during his first term.
Two things: 1) I instantly confirmed and re-dedicated myself to my pre-existing rule not to pay attention to anything in locker rooms, and 2) I started to laugh a little bit as argumentative thoughts started forming in my head, of the depth and quality as you'd normally find in a twitter fight, none of which were expressed.
The guy (whom I could not see) got progressively louder and angrier, with no responses from whomever he was speaking to (probably more aptly: "at"), and I felt a profound reflex eye-roll and a sigh coming on.
And then he goes "I didn't fight in two wars to watch my country get taken over by communists and socialists," or something to that effect. Now, obviously, this is an even stupider thing to say, as at least things like "apartment buildings," "Venezuelans" and "Aurora, Colorado" all actually exist, even if they were being combined in a way that had no relationship to the events being offered into evidence, but no actual communist or socialist has been earnestly active in American politics since maybe about 1926. So everything he was saying was of course dismissible. But at that point, I mostly just felt a sting of empathy, not pity like "this poor person is cursed with being stupid," more like "dude is going through it and this is him expressing it." And he wasn't hurting anyone (I didn't check to see if his conversation partner either existed or felt threatened/cornered), I just profoundly disagreed with his premises, his sources and his conclusions. But there was no value in engaging. If I've learned anything from being online, it's definitely that.
That's the whole Trump political arc summed up, though, one long "if they woulda tried that with me, I woulda..." story. The trick of course is that he was already president for four years and didn't accomplish a single one of the things he said he was going to accomplish, except fuck up the Supreme Court, which any off-the-rack Republican would have done anyway. The locker room loudmouths will find out where they stand next Tuesday, before the next blog entry comes out. Then we all get to wait and see how they respond. I'm sure they'll take it fine.
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*There are absolutely certain words or phrases that are perfectly understandable, but just off-putting when deployed in most contexts. I understand the placement of "under load" here fits those criteria. Just be grateful I didn't find a way to work in the word "moist."
**See, I coulda, but I didn't.