I read these denizen reports and laugh thinking that I see a lot of the lane swimmer types, but never the locker-room stuff....until yesterday.

I just finished up a hard set at lunch and got into the changing area. There's the usual gang of old dudes getting changed slowly, but a few lockers over, I see this old-timer hunch over and pull out the biggest pair of surgical scissors I have ever seen and starts cutting his toenails like he's hacking through chicken bones with kitchen shears!

Blech...just what we all need - nail shards in our feet from this guy who doesn't understand that cutting your nails is an at-home job!

Why, people....just why???

What's up with flip-turn guy who clears half the pool when he flips? He was at my pool yesterday. Every turn, he sent a wave of water crashing over the side. Is this a thing?

Happy to contribute to the locker room denizens trend.

After a swim Monday, go to the showers and see an old guy in the handicap stall with a huge paint bucket, filling it with the shower hose. I go to the only open shower stall, which happens to be next to him, and he stops me and says he is using it. At this point I got out purely to watch what would happen next...Somewhat predictably, he took the bucket of water, walked into what was formerly my stall, and dumped it on his head. At this point he returned to the handicap stall to refill.

What!?!

Erm... you’re wearing shower shoes in the locker room, right? No excuse for clipping toenails in public but seeing people walk around a locker room barefoot reminds me why I WILL NOT walk barefoot there!

---

KJ
Swim and Triathlon Coach
AllTerrainEndurance.com
KJ@allterrainendurance.com

This week I swam in a lane with a guy who not so much flip turns but cartwheels into the wall for the same effect. I left for an open lane as soon as I could.

---

Level II USAT Coach | Level 3 USAC Coach | NASM-CPT
Team Zoot | Tailwind Trailblazer
I can tell you why you're sick, I just can't write you an Rx

For sure wearing shower shoes! But when I need to get dressed I have to leave the blissful protection of my sandals and step on the floor. I’d like to think I wouldn’t be stepping on nail clippings.

More power to you, I guess. Build up that fungal resistance ;) I won't even step barefoot while changing, standing on top of my shoes the whole time. Maybe I just hang out in grosser gyms.

---

KJ
Swim and Triathlon Coach
AllTerrainEndurance.com
KJ@allterrainendurance.com

That one is easy. Handicap stall has a seat so he can fill the pail and not have to lift from the floor. Then old guy has to go to the stall with more room so he doesn't wipe out onto the seat in the handicap stall. Handicap stall also may have showerhead on a hose so he can direct it into the pail more easily.

---

They constantly try to escape from the darkness outside and within
Dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good T.S. Eliot

Well at the YMCA where I swim there are far too many guys who seem opposed to closing the shower curtain on their shower stall. I see enough of them as they are the guys who seem to love walking around nude in front of strangers but now I have to witness them scrubbing away at their groins.

My only question is, aren't we all headed there? Don't we all end up at the pool, slightly out if our minds, when we're near the end?

---

"The first virtue in a soldier is endurance of fatigue; courage is only the second virtue."
- Napoleon Bonaparte

Maybe. Many of these guys are 50s at oldest. Maybe I’m a prude for preferring not to see somebody scrubbing away at their groin in the shower or propping one foot on the sink and using the hair dryer to dry their balls. lol

Maybe I’m a prude for preferring not to see somebody scrubbing away at their groin in the shower or propping one foot on the sink and using the hair dryer to dry their balls
---

Possibly, prude. Then again, a vast majority of those folk, myself included, grew up in a locker room culture where individual stalls with doors/ curtains weren't a thing. Many times, there was a stripper pole with several shower heads that we all gathered around to do our business. Nowadays, we simply couldn't care less if people saw us washing our bits.

Having said that, I wonder at what age the "drying your boys with the hair dryer" gene kick in.

---

---

---

Take a short break from ST and read my blog:
http://tri-banter.blogspot.com/

I have finally been going to the pool long enough to witness several of these denizens you describe. I feel like I deserve some type of pokemon badge now.

Guy blowdrying his balls with his leg propped on the sink counter - check
guy standing in the shower with the curtain wide open staring you in the eyes as you walk into the opposite stall - cringe-worthy check
(attractive) girl who only wears her trisuit to swim in the pool but never wears a swim cap- check
humongous dude who floats up and down the lane looking like a dead whale as the lifeguards stare in shock wondering what will happen if he needs to be rescued - check
old naked guys sitting on the bench in queue to use the steam room - check
guy who intrudes into my lane as I'm swimming a set only to swim a 25 at the speed I am trying to do 100s - check
the navy seals recruits who only wear their little baggy skivy things while they swim back and forth with giant fins on - check
the bobber - check
a guy who looks like danny DeVito - check
a guy whos junk was either so big or he had a giant herniated mass that it scared a guy trying to change next to him - check
guys who make you shake your head and thank the lord that you don't look like that - check
toe-nail clippers - check
guy who stands in front of the mirror naked as he rubs lotion all over his body. . .check

---

Use this link to save $5 off your USAT membership renewal:
https://membership.usatriathlon.org/...A2-BAD7-6137B629D9B7

New denizen sighting for me today....

This new denizen was doing super slow breast stroke and back stroke, which wasn’t weird, but for some reason, at each end of the pool, had propped up a kickboard with 3 stacked pull buoys so that they looked for all the world like tombstones. Still trying to figure out what they were for. Maybe she had really crappy vision and she could see the red kickboards better?

---

___________________________________________________
Taco cat spelled backwards is....taco cat.

since I swim at the YMCA it can be a bit of a sh$tshow as far as lap swimming goes. This YMCA at least has a fairly good lap swim schedule. Or at least one where on most days I can get in an hour swim without too much of a hassle. I don't know if it qualifies for Strange Denizens of the Pool but we definitely have some "lap swimmers" who don't much adhere to the swimming so much as floating part way down a lane. Maybe hanging on the wall. or they float down the lane then spend 15 minutes on the wall performing various stretches. Or they will pop up out of nowhere in the middle of the lane. One example, a guy I guess thought his other lane was too busy and just went under the rope and appeared in the middle of the lane in front of me. For the most part this YMCA lap swimming is okay but there are some who are stretching the definition of lap swimming when they really should be in the open swim area.

Does a pool-stalker count?

Old guy in his 70's, drives a new corvette, works out every morning and then walks into the pool area with this chest puffed out and arms pulled out of from his sides (dude is skinny as a rail) and walks around the pool talking to all the ladies in their bathing suits as they complain how creepy he acts.

I joined the Y this year and have seen this. I've actually moved back to my college pool even though it's a little further to get too because the Y was so inconsistent (i'd drive over and they'd have kids camp taking up the pool or "heard" thunder and shut the pool down. It's only the fat lifeguard who hears thunder i've noticed.)

Earlier this year this old man was changing while some elementary school kids were in the locker room for some reason. They decided to stand right beside him and critique his body.

Kid #1- The old man has hair everywhere!
Kid #2- It's even growing out his butt.

I was trying not to laugh and got out before they could start commenting on me.

Guys you see in the locker room every day but you've never seen them break a sweat....

fortunately my Y is mostly good for lap swimming. and some of the lifeguards are actually pretty good about getting people out of the lap swim lanes who shouldn't be in them. and in my case the Y is 5 minutes away and there is another one 10 minutes away which I've had to go to when the pool got closed due to contamination.

Wow. This is 100% the pool I swim at. I made a post a few days ago about one of the bucket guys, did not realize they were already ST Famous.

A few weeks ago I was slogging along in my lane when I noticed that everyone around me had stopped swimming, and thought I had heard loud voices. I stopped to see what was going on in time to hear a scream, and a lifeguard jogging along the deck with a broom. Followed his eyes to see a rat - one of those fat DC/Adams Morgan ones - skittering around on the deck. A side door was ajar, possibly the point of entry, possibly the path for exit. Continued swimming and by the time I stopped at the wall again the rat was gone, and we all decided it was best to not acknowledge what just happened.

...and this is AFTER they cleaned up Marie Reed! Glad I “graduated” to Wilson...although it has its own denizens. Still, sorta glad the bucket guys are still
Going strong!

Don't get me started on the Y closing due to thunder...

Someone needs to create the official ST Strange Denizen bingo card.

The people who use an entire lane to do walk/do weird side lunge things/water "aerobics" smh...

Also, people with snorkels.

That would be hilarious.

Pics or it didn’t happen. . .on second thought maybe that’s not a good idea😐

---

Use this link to save $5 off your USAT membership renewal:
https://membership.usatriathlon.org/...A2-BAD7-6137B629D9B7