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During the day Laura
is an elementary school teacher in Storrs, Connecticut. At night she plunks herself in front of her laptop and writes
plays and essays. GOING TO SEE THE ELEPHANT, which is published by Dramatists Play Service, won the International PEN award for Best New Play.
Three of her plays for teenagers have been published by Heuer’s; TEENAGE
NIGHTMARE, CLIQUES AND CAFETERIAS and THE MYSTERIOUS ART OF ADVERTISING. This summer she attended the Connecticut Writing Project where she
discovered a knack for writing funny essays about her somewhat ridiculous life. She has an essay, THE GAME SHOW, coming out in the ezine, FRESH YARN
and GROUND HOG in the ezine, WILD VIOLET.
I realized I forgot my towel right after I jumped in the pool. I swim at the
Community Center every morning before going to work. I have always considered having a towel, along with underwear, deodorant and shampoo, one
of the essential components of a successful exercise event.
I shower when I wake up (actually I shower to wake up) but don’t wash my
hair. I put on my suit and then my clothing for the day. Underwear and towel
go in my gym bag. I get to the pool, take off the outer clothes skip the shower before going into the pool because I just showered at home, put on my
flip flops, grab my goggles and Zoomers and jump in the pool. (A quick aside. If you swim for exercise and don’t know about Zoomers, check them
out. They are short flippers that give you extra “zoom” and take a lot of
stress off of your shoulders. I take my swimming seriously. I have equipment.)
Okay. So I jumped in the pool and then realized I forgot my towel. If I had
realized this a moment before I could have stayed dried and a.) gone home and gotten a towel or b.) skipped the swim and gotten to work dry. Since I
didn’t realize the towel situation until I was wet I was stuck. At first I
spent a few laps thinking about how to not be wet (it was early, OK? The
ol’ grey matter wasn’t at optimum form.). I finally realized how that wasn’t
really a fruitful line of thought and proceeded to spend a few laps thinking
that if I skipped the shower after the swim…No wait. I’m already wet. The
après swim shower stays. How about if I don’t swim my full thirty minutes…?
The rest of the laps were spent puzzling out how to get dry with no towel.
Normally I shower and at least put on my underwear in one of the little cubicles. I’m not big on walking around naked. I was surprised at how many
women are (which is how the nickname, Connudity Center came into being). Surely, they can’t all be European. Being a former Catholic from Chicago I
am not comfortable with walking around naked. (I have no idea if being Catholic or from Chicago has anything to do with my reluctance. It could
have something to do with the extra ten pounds I carry around which is a lot
less noticeable when clothed.)
This walking around nude is an issue I have with these other women though it’s an issue that I’ve never voiced. I suspect I’m not on the right side of
this issue but personally, if you are going to walk around nude then you should be about 16 and thin. The sixteen years olds, however, are unwilling
to share views of their bodies. When I was young and svelte the closest I ever came to walking around nude was the few times I went skinny dipping and
that was always a nocturnal activity and we ran. Unfortunately it’s the
overweight middle-aged women that are willing to go sans clothing. I guess
I’m a prude here, but it’s weird having a conversation with a naked woman.
“Excuse me, but where did you get your Zoomers?” asks a vente sized woman
who has never experienced Eve’s shame.
“Oh! Ha ha! I got them on line!” I babble as my eyes dart for someplace
safe to land. “They’re really great! Takes the stress off your shoulders!
You really zoom with them which is why I guess they’re called Zoomers!” I
duck for cover under the hair dryer and embrace the privacy of it’s noise.
How hard would it have been for her to put on a pair of underpants and then
converse? After two years I’m sort of starting to get used to it. I am
also getting depressed by the unfettered view of the painful slide my body
is heading for.
Anyway, I was towel-less. Do I grab a bunch of paper towels and bring them
into the cubicle? That didn’t seem like an optimal solution, as it would be
a very wet person getting those towels and then taking them into a sort of
wet cubicle. And how many paper towels does it take to dry one average sized
body and head of hair anyway? And what if you think ten and it turns out to
be fifteen? Does a partially dried nude body running out to get five more paper towels find it any less embarrassing than a soaking wet one?
The only thing I had in my bag was an extra pair of cotton underpants (having learned the hard way that underwear is an easy thing to forget to
pack when rushing to get to the gym.). I guess I really had no choice. Shower then use the underpants to get some of the water off. In this semi
dry state I could pull the dry pair on and then grab some paper towels and
stand in front of the hair dryer. If I had any luck the locker room might be
empty.
Well, of course the locker room wasn’t empty. I showered, and showered, and
toyed with the idea of just showering all day and to heck with going to work. Not a realistic solution. I turned off the water and thought of the
Romans. They scraped themselves clean. No need to hassle the water and soap
stuff. Dripping, I grabbed my comb and using the non-toothed side I tried a
scrape and discovered that it did get rid of some of the water. My lack of a
slave made my back hard to get at and my hair was dripping. I tried
scraping my hair dry. I would not call the venture successful. So I tried the wet dog technique. It helped a lot though gave my sinuses something to
complain about. Shake, shake. Scrape, scrape.
And now here comes the amazing part.
I got out the spare pair of underwear
And started to blot from here to there.
I even used it to rub my hair.
I blotted my front and my derrière.
I blotted away without a care.
I blotted my skin, which was very bare.
(sort of like being very pregnant)
And the amazing part? The one set of underpants (OK. Let me just say for the record that set of underpants is an odd phrase. But you can’t say
underpant, can you? Sounds kind of Big Bad Wolfish. And I have always hated
the word ‘panties.’ It has a weird mix of Victoria Secret and six year olds
girls at the same time. Makes me uncomfortable. Sorry. Back to the amazing
part). That one set of underpants was incredibly absorbent. It was kind of
like the Miracle of the Loaves and the Fishes. Or the Hanukah oil lasting
eight nights. These babies soaked up water like, well like a towel. In fact
they were better than a towel; lightweight, fit nicely in the hand, not bulky or heavy when wet and extremely sponge-like. I was amazed, which is
why I call this the amazing part.
This all leads me to my next epiphany; why not, (are you with me?) why not
make towels out of (are you ready for this?) cotton underwear! I mean the
material that cotton underpants are made out of not actual underpants. I’m
pretty sure this Miracle of the Underpants has nothing to do with the particular pair that I used, or the design. It’s the smooth cotton surface.
All that terry stuff is just another way the style meisters force us into buying expensive Egyptian bath towels. How many of you have ever spent a
lot of money, and I mean a LOT of money, buying new towels only to find out
that all they do is spread the water around? You can’t tell, by looking at
tags or feeling the pile whether they will do the job they are supposedly designed to do. But if cotton underpants are so effective just imagine how
much drying power a simple T-shirt would have! Why an XLG would be enough to
dry a whole family!
Now before you go digging through the rag bag for towels, think. After all
you don’t want rags hanging in your bathroom. You crave style. Which is why
I am coming out with a complete line of Toffenetti T-Shirt Towels, Designer’s Edition. I’m thinking tassels and some gold threads integrated
into earth toned T’s. I’ll make a fortune.
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