April Showers Bring Back Jr. High Nightmares

My bathrobe was not usable today (yes, that is a whole story there,)and I ended up wrapping up in towels after my shower. Matthew made a whistle and a comment about our need for shorter towels and it brought back all those memories from Jr.and High School gym showers.

Matthew looks all quizzical, "What do you mean it gives you the heebie jeebies thinking about gym showers? I never had to take a gym shower in Jr. High OR High School . . . I mean, you COULD if you were in athletics or som'n, but not for gym class."

"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood . . ."

WHAT!!!!! For the veracity of my horror I appeal to the testimony of all my siblings, sisters in particular, who like myself, were FORCED to take showers. You know those little hand towels they hand basketball players? The hand towel that you spin with the "gatorade" insignia on it? That was the size of your towel. The gym teacher and/or assistant stood outside the shower, handed you one, and then you got to go, take a whirl and get out. The trick was to get enough water sprinkled on your shoulder that you weren't sent back for a "redo."
Then, in my senior year, they figured that it would be more economical to do away with City High's laundry services (lets face it, they were cleaning CLEAN towels), and they gave us PAPER TOWELS! SO help me! It was a paper towel!

I was explaining to Matthew the horror of being exposed to your classmates in the first place. Who had jugs, who had chocolate chips, popular vs. unpopular, confident girls who put on their socks in just their underwear, and the painfully shy who were beet red before we even left the gym floor.
But my mortification was the good ole Grandma panties that my mom bought. Huge panties that were THE farthest things from sexy/acceptible at the high school level. The athletic girls wore "Jockey", were tan, fit, and didn't mind taking their time putting their clothes on - which had most likely been purchased within the last month or two. Me, I scurried my pasty butt with my "Scottish tan" to the farthest reaches of the locker room. Deep in the middle, and far to the edge of the locker room where there was very little "foot traffic." I remember that there was kinda a race to get to the locker at the very edge so that you only had to deal with ONE "neighbor."
This was not the "nerd" section of the locker room, - I'm sorry to say it, but there was an unspoken designated dressing area for the social outcasts who tended to smoke near the school grounds (not ON school grounds, just near - where everyone could see them). They wore a lot of black mascara and heavy metal t-shirts and no one minded giving them their own area to change . . .). It was in the belly of the beast that I would have to put on my 12-in-an-economy-pack Hanes practically-up-to-your-armpit underpants that I was trying to disguise with my PAPER TOWEL that was starting to become transparent where I had splashed my shoulders (and back - for good measure).

It was a Cirque de Soleil feat. A friggin' fan dance. "With this small towel I will attempt to put on huge Gramma undies that need to be rolled to find the leg outlets, pull them up to my middle - front AND back - without anyone seeing while simultaneously trying to cover up the size and shape of my high school RACK that I'm hoping will not be compared to ANYTHING by ANYBODY!

The towel may not fall to the ground at any point, but must be knotted at the corner, (a knot the size of the end of a balloon due to the tiny towel), enough to stay UP on its own while I grab my jeans that need two hands to put on - to cover said Gramma panties. A bra must then be fitted around and up with only a split second exposure for the "over the shoulder" strap feat, before grabbing a t-shirt to further conceal the fact that your underwear practically meets your bra." At one point in this painful process it became a race against time; it never failed that somewhere in the process your towel knot was going . . . going . . . GONE!

Matthew listened with amusement and disbelief. "I guess my gym teachers were lazy. We never did much during gym to justify a shower." He went on to describe the "gang" showers (or "shower tree")at the MTC, and probable reasons why the showers had no doors, but I think he had to admit - 8 weeks of that beats, hands down, 6 years of teen high school angst.