Clean Forgot

It's gotten hot enough here that outside activities need to be done early in the morning or late in the evening. I'm more of a morning person, so today Hubby Tony and I drove to the local YMCA branch and did a couple of errands on foot before I headed inside for an Aqua Zumba class.

Even though our walking route has a lot of shade, I know from past experience that at the end I will be sweaty, so in addition to my suit, pool shoes, and towel I bring fresh clothes to change into post-pool. At the gym I left my bag in the car, then headed to the bank and the post office before returning to the car for my things.

This branch of the Y normally has four locker rooms-one for women, girls, men, and boys. However, this summer they're renovating the adult ones and the youth locker rooms now serve all ages by sex. Except for the fact that the lockers themselves are smaller it's not much of an issue during the times I'm in there. Everyone is my age or older.

In the locker room I took my things out of the bag and realized I had forgotten to bring a beach towel. Before putting on my suit I took a second to figure out exactly what that meant. I could use my dirty clothes to dry off. The pool area is through the shower room and down a flight of stairs. Getting there would not be an issue but afterwards getting from the shower to the locker area could be a little problematic.

The showers are communal, with a row of heads lined up along one wall of the room. (Twenty-year old me would have had an issue with this, but past-middle aged me has no problem showering with a bunch of women my age.) My routine is to adjust the water correct temperature, stand under it, take my suit off and let it hang to drip. When I'm finished showering I squeeze as much water out of the suit as possible, dry off, then wrap the towel around me to walk through the wet area to the lockers.

Today I used my hands to try and squeegee as much water off my body as possible, then hustled my damp, bare bottomed self over to my locker. It took both my damp tank top and cotton knit shorts to dry my body enough to put the new clothes on.

Then I realized that in addition to drying my body, the beach towel also serves as a layer in the bottom of my bag to sop up water from the wet suit. Even though I put those clothes in the bag first, they didn't sop up much liquid. I think I might have left a small trail of water drops as I walked down the stairs and out of the dressing room.

Five years ago today: Almost Healthy