I'm am not a happy camper.  It 9pm and I'm in my lab running my experiment and it's going to be awhile.  So, let's blog.  I know it has been awhile since Part III of my locker room series, and I can only hope this makes it worth the wait.
#4. The Pink Briefed Panther.

The Pink Briefed Panther (PBP) is most certainly the most tragic of our locker room characters.  He is almost tragic enough to make me feel slightly uncomfortable about blogging about his existence, but he happened to be back in the locker room today (after a lengthy absence) and he was once again up to his old shenanigans.  And so my uncomfortability flew right out the window.

The PBP bares an uncanny physical resemblance to the character Artie ("the kid in the wheelchair") on the t.v. show gLee".  Considering the actor who plays Artie is not, himself, paraplegic, there is a small chance it's actually the same kid.  But i doubt it.

Most of the other locker room characters all have one thing in common.  They have a locker.  Or, at the very least, they have a space where they change.  The PBP does not.  He's a lurker.  He always "changes clothes" (i have never seen him actually fully change) near, but not next to, others in the locker room.  But, I'm getting ahead of myself.  Let me start by telling my first "experience" with the PBP.

Post swimming, I take a shower in the large two-room shower area which is between the pool and the locker area (no picture this time).  As I am showering the PBP walks by the shower, walking like a true panther in the wild, he looks in at me and continues on by.  I think nothing of this.  Then he walks back the way he came, looks in, and continues past.   Still no blip on my radar.  This is what happens every time someone goes to the bathroom (which is just past the showers).  Then, he walks back again.  Hmmm, did he forget something?  And back again.  He must have forgotten something.  And then back again, every time glancing in.  I shit you not, the first time I encountered the PBP he repeated this procedure 5 times.  That's ten passes.  That is friggin weird.  That's boarding on . . . no . . . not bordering on . . . that's creepy.

And I need to take a minute to clarify something.  I am not homophobic.  I know to say it that directly seems defensive, but I need to make this clear.  I am as flattered (perhaps more) when a guy hits on me as I am when a woman does.  I think discrimination based on sexual orientation will eventually come to be seen as as offensive as discrimination based on color (because it is).  I am in no way grossed out by anything homosexual, may it be the sex acts of 2 women or 2 men.  Frankly, I don't give a damn what people do on their own time.  Screw a pineapple, sofa cushion, or lard in a Tupperware (where do i get these things), I really don't care.   If you need any more convincing, i was a dance major in college, enough said.

To even further make this clarification i will give an example not of the PBP, but another locker room patron, similarly invading my idea of common courtesy and etiquette in the locker room.  In a double shower room with 72 shower nozzles, I was showering alone post swim.  A man entered the shower room and proceeded to come and shower directly next to me.  While some nozzles are better than others (pun not intended--i'm talking water pressure here), the one's next to my shower were not the "good one's."  This makes me uncomfortable in the same way that peeing next to someone when there are free urinals elsewhere is taboo (trust me on this one ladies).  I am not worried that this guy is gay and going to do "something gay" to me (what the hell would that be?).  I just don't need someone (anyone) up in my piece when there is a virtual cornucopia of space to shower in. 

So, as the PBP lurks back and forth for a 10th pass, I am tempted to tell him to "take a picture cause it will last longer."  I don't.  Interestingly, I have never seen the PBP in workout attire.  He changes in an ellaborate process (with much back and forth around the shower), but only once have I seen him even undress to his skivvies.  As per the name, they were pink tighty-whities.  (in full disclosure, I have many pairs of light-blue boxer briefs and I actually thought the underwear itself [minus the inappropriate behavior] were kinda fly]).

The PBP has also been known to camp out at the end of a locker row and study.  Now, you've seen the pictures.  The locker room is NO ONE'S ideal study environment.  It's damp, clammy, and smells like sweat.  It's just an unpleasant place unless you're a fungus looking for a host.  So, to see a kid hanging at the end of the row with his feat up on the bench with his books out is just plain weird.  Then to change in front of him as he looks on. . . it's just a creepy invasion of privacy.

Now, as I began, this kid is obviously grappling with some issues of his own.  And I kinda want to hand him resources of people to talk too, cause he's just too awkward looking to feel actually threatened by.  But that doesn't excuse his behavior, or make it ok.  The locker room is not a spectator sport, and if you aren't changing, showering, or going to the bathroom, you gots to go.