We now continue our journey into the secret world of public locker rooms.  Ladies, you should know that this brief look "behind the curtain" should be enough to keep you from actually ever entering one of these places.  I know this seems obvious, but not too long ago, one of the people i met just after re-pantsing was a young lady, totally lost, totally not great at English, looking for the gym.  Again, she had somehow wandered smack dab into the middle of the men's locker room while looking for the gym.  This situation could have been much much MUCH MUCH worse.  I'm talking massive amounts of old guy ball sac worse.  She was very lucky.  Her childhood remained in tack.  I escorted her out.  I'm a hero.

Chief Stands-on-Bench

Now one of the reason for the delay between posts (besides the fucking police), was that I really felt that in order to get the full "Chief" experience you should have more of a picture of the locker room.  So, for you my faithful readers, I took my 2nd and 3rd locker room photos.  I swear if grad school doesn't work out maybe i can parlay this into a career in porn stills.  I digress.  Here are some shots of the men's locker room at UMass:

As you can see, its pretty WWII Poland grey.  Add a nice dampness and fungal feeling and its almost like you yourself are there. Which brings us to Chief Stands-on-Bench (CSOB).  As the name implies, CSOB likes to stand on the damp wooden bench pictured, between the opposing locker faces.   Oh, and he's completely naked.  This is a 50-60 yr-old man we are talking about.  Totally friggin nude.  Nudy-tune.  He'd be nude-zilla if Mr. Confidence (coming up next), didn't exist. These are old balls.

Most important to understanding what a nude man standing on a bench in the middle of a bunch of lockers "means,' is to picture where that leaves "his junk."  His bait and tackle.  His penis and balls.

The answer to that most important of questions is, "At eye level."  Now, say your locker is remotely close to his locker.  Say, 5 lockers down.  That means you, quite literally, have to keep a heads up to assure you don't "knock heads."

I'm sorry, but this doesn't seem like appropriate locker room etiquette, and being the psychologist i am, i have tried to come up with potential reasons that CSOB stands on the bench.

Here's some potential reasons.  One.  He thinks its easier to access his "top locker."  If this is the reason than i wish him small pox (it is worth mentioning that CSOB is not, to the best of my knowledge and observation, remotely Native American).   I realize that there are no people in the reference pictures (for good reason) but the top locker starts around my belly-button.  Come friggin on.

Reason 2.  He's worried about the cleanliness of the floor.  On its face, this seems like a reasonable explanation, but here's why it's not.  First of all, he doesn't wear shower shoes, so he can't be OCD or super worried about his own hygiene as it relates to touching things in the gym.  Second, the bench is totally totally totally gross.  The bench is an ass cushion for most.  A bare ass cushion.  Standing on that thing is arguably grosser (hygiene-wise) than the floor.  I have seen things on those benches that would necessitate me blocking underage users from seeing my blog in order to recount.  DON'T LICK THE BENCH!

So there is no good reason for putting your pee-pee on that kind of display.  And, in the interest of satisfying your curiosity, its nothing to be put on display.  This is not a candidate for the penis hall of fame.  I'm not one to usually talk about other men's stuff, especially negatively, but like they say, if you put it all up in my face im gonna put it all up on the internets.  Ok,  only i say that.  But i think it goes without saying.

Last thing about CSOB.  He has been "friendly" enough in the past to engage me in a totally unsolicited conversation about pool etiquette (put on your boots, the irony is about to run thick).  He complained that people don't know how to stay on their side of the lane (when splitting the lane) and they always end up hitting or kicking him.  Now, as someone who has experienced this, i will admit that this does suck.  It breaks your rhythm and can hurt if you aren't expecting it.  That said, a few days later i saw CSOB in the pool in a lane all by himself.  His crawl stroke looked like an epileptic being tasered.  I laughed out loud.  This guy needs more mirrors in his life.  When i lived in Brooklyn, my housemates and i printed stickers that said, "But maybe your the asshole."  They brilliantly were meant to make people look at themselves before cursing out everyone else in their surroundings.  We made those stickers for CSOB.

Next time on "the 5 people you meet"  Mr. Confidence.

as a teaser trailer i will tell you that i hate mr. confidence the MOST!!!