Ok, this is a public service announcement.  If you get a SwimMan personal underwater music playing device, and Eminem comes on playing, "I'm the slim shady, no i'm the slim shady, all you other slim shady's are just imitate'n."  DO NOT SING ALONG.  It does not work out well for you.  While your iPod nano may be water-proofed from the inside out, your lungs are not.  There is nothing funny about a swimmer gulping water seemingly out of nowhere for trying to rap while swimming.  Picture it.  Wait a minute.  It IS that funny.

Second.  We have gotten to the point in T.V. history that when famous people are being announced, their names are preceded by "the real."  For example, tonight on "the Marriage Ref," the announcer (whose name i have not yet learned.  Poppa? Poopa? Pumba?) thanked "the real David Blaine" (who, staying true to his strict training regimen for the douchebag of the millenium contest, was eating fast food in a plexiglass case for no reason).  Has is come to this.  We are betrayed and misled so much that we must now introduce the presence of a person with the prompt that that person is, in fact, that person. I'm just saying.

And lastly.  I know by now that you guys probably think that I spend a good amount of my days roaming locker rooms for funny stuff to write about.  But I don't.  Just one locker room.  And this stuff is literally plastered on the walls.  Here is the absolute GEM of a sign that now hangs on the men's locker room shower wall.
(any female spies out there want to tell me if this is happening over in the lady's camp as well?)


First let me point out that this sign is on the outside wall of the shower, far from the nozzles themselves. That said, this sign is drenched.  I have no explanation for it's drenching except that it was someone's reaction to them removing all the soap dispensers in the shower room!!! Let's break this down.

1) What the fuck is soft soap?  For that matter, what is hard soap.  I've heard of bar soap and liquid soap, but never soft.  Because really, the pink barely-an-excuse-for-soap that they were providing, was not soft.  I would not want to pet it.  I may want to rub my face against it, but it would be purely functional.  It's like calling methane "soft gas."  Ok, no it's not, but I'm going to start calling farts "soft gas" from now on cause i think that's hilarious.

2) Assuming that "soft soap" referred to the liquid soap previously provided, how can throwing it on the walls be a "severe safety issue."  Throwing soap on the floor?  I get that.  That's definitely dangerous.  That said, the floor of the shower room is designed specifically for the purpose of collecting that clearing water and soap.  And, I'm not sure where the unnamed officials who revoked our soap privileges think the soap provided is GOING to end up.  But,it's a shower.  It's all going on the floor.  It's the only place it CAN go.  I would go so far as to say it's designed specifically too end up on the floor.  But I digress.  Back to the soap on the walls.  Again, is this protecting those who use the shower room as a place to get their lean on as they saunter up to other shower users.  Because I'm ok with those guys being deterred.  The shower room is a no 'get your lean on' zone (unless it is a specifically designated 'get your lean on' shower room, in which case, go friggin crazy guys), period.  I'm just imagining this being the punishment for some dick-wad who was attempting the one-hand-against-the-wall--head propped to the side--casual BBQ invite on a dude whose mid-suddsing, and his hand slipped on some errant soft soap (?)  and he fell and got embarrassed and that boiled into anger, that got shouted back to some administrator, who then took all the soap out of the shower.  Soap on the walls a severe safety issue?  Verdict: Not Guilty.

3) So we are talking about severe safety issues huh.  And your thinking a few soap fights (right?  I can't imagine what else this could be referring to [though I'm sure humanity will not let me down with it's true explanation--expect the unexpected]) are a larger health risk than a sizable number of sweaty, uncleaned men, post-workout, sharing a gym.  "Hello green fungus growing on these lockers and into my lungs. I'm sure glad there is no soap on the shower room floor to slip on.  I might get hurt."  (And how, in god's name, would I clean up all this split soap?  I mean, I'd need a ton of water.)  Which brings me to my final point.

4) This is not middle school.  We do not revoke privileges at state-run public school gyms.  After increasing my fee (as an employee) by over %210, the least you can do is leave the god damn cheap soap in the showers so I can wash the chlorine off me.  What lesson are you teaching?  And who are you teaching it too?  This is no longer the main gym that the undergrads use, so mostly it's just athletes (who you would think they would cater to), grad students, and faculty.  Do you want us to all get together and collaborate on an apology letter and sign it?  Would that re-gain your faith and trust in us enough to once again provide us with soap?  It's SOAP!!! Not candy or liquor.  When I was growing up (oh yah, I said it), soap was a punishment.  You tried your damnedest to avoid the soap.  Oh how times have changed.



P.S.  On a personal note, one of my fellow graduate-school (sufferers) friends, Becky, got a real big-girl job today--before she's even finished her Ph.D. work.  It's the dream, and she's living it.  As I told her, we don't go to graduate school to get a Ph.D., we go to graduate school to get a job that REQUIRES a Ph.D.  And she did it.  Congrats!