A
rather interesting encounter I once had with a chap taught me to never prompt.
I was sat with a towel wrapped around my modesty inside the sauna in the gym
changing rooms. A man entered shortly after me and said ‘hullo’ before taking a
seat. He too was modestly garbed, in an orange, well, flannel would be a more
appropriate description, and as he was at retiring age, he was only too
considerate when it came to flashing a duvet of greying mesh in my face (and
his nuts and bolt occasionally too). I find that men of this age know no bounds
when it comes to intimate skin exposure, particularly when surrounded with
other men of the same nature. It must be a kind of comforting, I feel, maybe
even lawful (who knows?) display of manly affection, a requirement, when in a
gym changing room to flash your jingling jangles for a few moments in spurting
intervals to perfect strangers – particularly whilst reaching one leg up onto a
nearby surface and drying the more delicate parts of the anatomy, caressing
them with a soft towel rub. That is customary, it seems. Believe me, as much as
it is a pleasure to have a conversation or listen to a conversation of two
greying cobblers whilst they compete in the daily reach-around contests,
testing just how flexible their arm with a good bundle of towel will be and
seeing just how much scrub they can give to their derrières, it would be nice
to at least once, I say, at least once,
walk into the gym changing room and not see two men square facing each other
discussing their fence perimeters or how to appropriately fill the blue dustbin
with contents, or any other life absorbing contextual discussion, whilst
comforting their nether-regions with a hair dryer or even worse, standing hand
on hips completely starker’s in the middle of the direct path to the lockers.
But anyway, my point wasn’t about
the display of genitalia amongst elder folk, it was more about this chap who I
was in discussion with in the sauna
in the changing room. He was telling me about how he struggles with bronchitis
on a regular basis, or rather, that he used to. Upon discussing how he doesn’t
use the steam room facility in the pool area for the reason that he struggles
with breathing afterwards, he then went on to say how he was just about done in
the sauna. This is when I prompted.
‘Oh, you don’t smoke do you by any
chance?’ I said harmlessly, so I thought.
‘No, no. I don’t smoke, but I’ll
tell you this,’ he then commenced to sit back down and I, almost immediately,
understood that I had just given him an excuse to converse further about
something completely irrelevant to my day, or indeed my life, ‘I used to have
trouble going to the toilet,’ oh boy, ‘and a friend of mine, also used to have trouble going to the
toilet. It happens when you get older you see.’ You didn’t see that coming did
you? He continued ‘but then my friend said he started using this thing called Kelp. Since then he’s been able to go to
the toilet fine, and so I thought, well, I’ll give it a try and start using it.
This was five years ago.’ Oh goodness me, I’ve got to sit here for another five
years worth of this story. He does realise the recommended time for the sauna
exceeds no more than ten minutes? He flashed me with his towel. ‘Well, I tell
you, since then, I’ve never been ill. Not once in five years. I started taking
it all the time, everyday. And I can go to the toilet fine too!’ This was all
useful information, but I was now melting into a puddle and so got up to take
my leave accordingly, covering my modesty with my towel when he said ‘is that
your key?’
I looked puzzled at the floor. ‘No,
no. It’s not my key. Where do you mean?’
‘There, on the floor. No, not out
there. In here!’ He stressed.
‘Erm, no.’ I thought disparagingly,
it’s a puddle of water you old fool.
‘Ah no.’ He laughed, realising his confusing
senior moment. ‘It’s just water, it’s just blooming water.’ He laughed again.
Then, miraculously, he got up to leave, his towel flopping by his side
revealing his cuckoo’s nest.
‘Hey, I’ll tell you something
though,’ he said laughingly, ‘that Kelp, it doesn’t do anything for your
eyesight!’
No, I thought. And that towel
clearly doesn’t do anything for your modesty either.
