Now I know that at least of few of you have been waiting for this one. And to be honest, so have i. I apologize for the delay but, truth is, this is not (yet) my job. So, until that changes and my brilliance is more globally recognized, i have time constraints. Enough about this. Let's get to our man.


#3. Mr. Confidence

Mr. Confidence is my least favorite person in the locker room.  If this series of articles were like the book the 5 people you meet in heaven, Mr. Confident would be at whichever character symbolized "you" bottoming out.  Put simply, Mr. Confidence walks around the locker room naked.  But that simple fact is not why you should hate him.  Mr. Confidence walks around naked as if the locker room were his home bathroom.  And his bathroom has a lot of mirrors in it.  It is not that there is anything wrong with being naked in the locker room, that's kinda the point in most cases, but most people don't relish this time.  And they certainly don't see it as a chance to showcase themselves.  Mr. Confidence will engage you in conversation, while naked, without making any indication that he is trying to find a way to cover himself.  That's not ok.

But, in order to fully understand why I hate Mr. Confidence, you need some context.  Where i come from (Pittsfield, MA public school system) you do not get naked in a school's shower.  Hell, if you took a shower in my middle or high school (both which had shower rooms), it would be all over the school.  The only time I saw any of those showers used was when I and the other freshman soccer players were soaked down in freezing water with all of our clothes and warm-ups on in the middle of winter (i believe they call this "hazing"). Otherwise, those showers were purely ornamental.

Being that carefree in a locker room indicates to me that this kid and i have some fundamental differences in terms of where we come from--emotionally.  There is no way that any person that went to my high school could be Mr. Confidence.  I don't care if you were popular or not.  Being uncomfortable in that kind of dirty public sweat-filled collection area was more a fact than a variable experience.  If you have ever had some fat gym teacher line you and your friends up (middle school now) in your underwear to check you for scoliosis, you can never be Mr. Confidence.

Pause.  HOW THE HELL DID THAT HAPPEN!  I was just recalling this scoliosis test i took in middle school and i literally flashed on all of us lined up in tightie white-ies and bending over, then turning, then bending over again.  How did this happen!?!?  Did parents know about this.  I'm almost positive that our gym teacher at the time was no "spinal specialist."  All im saying is that if some gym teacher did want to see all the little boys or girls in their underwear, this would be how they would do it.  And it happened.  I'm kind of grossed out right now.  Bletch.

Unpause.  You see how powerful these memories are.  I am not uncomfortable about nudity (i can actually hear a few of you chuckling at me writing that), but if you see a UMass dingy locker room as any sort of runway or social get together -- i hate you.  Again, its not making friends in a locker room that i don't like--that's fine-- it's equating that dungeon with any sort of bar scene/social mixer, which i despise.

Mr. Confidence doesn't tip well.  Mr. Confidence has a blue-tooth device he uses in public, probably when ordering.  Mr. Confidence doesn't feel he needs to look both ways before crossing the street.  In short, one of these days I'm gonna soap down the tiles before Mr. Confidence showers.  Maybe it'll knock some sense into him.


Next up: The Pink Briefed Panther.