We hear all the time that it's a youth-oriented culture, and the signs of it are everywhere, from TV shows about facelifts to the media attention focused on Britney Spears (rather than, say, Lena Horne or Patti Smith). It's an out-with-the-old and in-with-the-new society, in which such arts as darning socks and repairing shoes seem downright archaic. And when Bob Newhart says 'fashizzle' in Legally Blonde 2, there can be no doubt whose opinion of a movie really counts. But there is one place that age is still king—queen: the women's locker room of many health clubs and YMCAs. As with most important things in life, I found this out entirely by accident.
Spring seemed like a good time to improve my meager swimming skills, and I signed up for a class at a local YMCA. In class, in the pool, our college-aged instructor called the shots, but once I hit the locker room, my wet suit dripping on the floor, I quickly found out who was in charge.
'There's a lot of water there.'
A woman sitting on a stool several yards away stopped ministering to her feet long enough to point a disapproving finger at the puddle growing near the locker door where my suit was hanging.
'Yeah,' I acknowledged. 'I'm not sure what to do about it.'
'There's a suit spinner right in there,' she said, as if any idiot should know that.
I didn't bother explaining that the last time I'd been in a swimming pool, the options available for suit drying were either to hang it somewhere to air dry or leave it in your gym bag to gather mold awhile before hanging it up to dry. Her narrowed eyes made it clear no excuse was acceptable.
'Sorry.' I threw my towel to the floor and quickly mopped up before heading for the souped-up salad spinner.
When I left the locker room and met my girlfriend, she asked how class was.
'Good,' I said 'But I got yelled at in the locker room by an old lady,' I confided—ignoring the fact that, by many people's standards, I myself am not exactly a spring chicken.
'Old ladies rule the locker room,' my gal sagely averred.
Despite my experience and her corroboration of it, I might have been tempted to write the whole thing off as a unique experience if an acquaintance of ours hadn't shared her own YMCA locker room experience with us a few days afterward.
'The old Latina ladies rule my locker room,' she said and told us how they would spread out mats on the floor below the TV above the lockers, give themselves facials, and lie back wearing nothing but their underpants, making it hard for anyone else to get around the room.
I haven't been reprimanded since that first time, but it's clear whose space that locker and shower room is and who is just there on a tourist Visa: they shower with the curtains open, as if daring you to see how your body will look in a few more years; they walk around naked and have extended conversations, clearly completely at home; and they have no qualms about declaring that of the two pools, the one with the warmer water (which is where my class is held) 'is for sissies.'
I could be offended at being talked to like I was a naughty child or an imbecile. I could be squeamish about the yards of sagging skin I've seen over the past few weeks. But heck, it's not like they're sitting on their porches and shouting at me to get off the lawn or pounding with a broom handle and yelling that my music—or my dog's breathing—is too loud: they are in a locker room after doing aerobics, playing racquetball, swimming. They are wearing shorts, tank tops, and sweat bands, not housedresses, slippers, and knee-hi panty hose rolled to their ankles. These women are awesome! That woman who swims in the 'cool pool'? I bet she could kick my butt in swimming. Oh, I know my place—part of the next generation in line to rule the tiny fiefdom of towels, tile floors, and battered storage compartments.
But spread the news: the matriarchy isn't dead—it's just showering after a workout!
c 2004 by Yvonne Zipter.
www.yvonnezipter.com