#20 Loofah me tender

So the other day I’m showering at my gym. You know, my health and fitness club. Normally while I’m in the shower, I keep to myself, but my club has one of those old fashioned showers—is it old-fashion or old-fashioned?—anyhow, one of those kind of steamy rooms with no partitions that has six nozzles and just enough space between them to allow for minimal elbow room. I’m not saying it’s cramped but, it’s lucky it’s in a health club and not an overeaters anonymous cause there wouldn’t be enough room for too many opera singers if you know what I mean. 250 plus a little, okay, but 310-ers, forget it. Because of that, it’s not unheard of to get a little bounce-off from the guy next to you if the water’s hitting him a little hard. Adds a whole new dimension to the term backsplash. So I tend to go to one of the corners when they’re available and avoid the center nozzle. Not that I’m paranoid about the hopefully uncontaminated droplets bouncing off the backs of sweaty athletes, but, you never know who’s been on what weight bench where. Anyhow, like I say, I’m minding my own business And I turn around after I wash the soap out of my eyes and I’m greeted with a surprising tableau. A fellow across the way is soaping up a Loofah. Well, to be fair it wasn’t a real Loofah. It was one of those new-fangled—is it new-fangle or new-fangled?—jobbies that looks like someone tied a bunch of handi-wipes together with a strip of nylon. They make great lather, I know because my wife has one in our home shower. I, for one, am old-fashioned enough to make my own lather and don’t resort to such shortcuts. And, as I’ve said before, the soap dispenser in my gym now squirts out foamy stuff so why bring in one of those Loofah-likes anyhow? But what strikes me is how far we’ve come. I remember the time when bringing a washcloth in to the gym shower was considered something of an affectation. Real men didn’t use a washcloth. You just used soap and your hands for gosh sake. And you did so quickly, no lingering. Soap up. Rinse off. And none of that shampoo stuff in your hair either. Use soap dammit, it’s good enough. Heck, it was even considered a little effeminate to have the water too darn hot.
I noticed something else as I blinked back the water from my eyes. The man was reaching for a bottle on the little soap shelf by his nozzle. I could barely make out the label. It said “gentle exfoliating rub.” Ohmygosh. I guess there’s a first for everything. But I never thought I’d take a shower at a gym and see someone exfoliating. Back in the day we used to use Lava. Volcanic pumice rubbed off dead skin pretty dang good. Heck, it even killed some skin and then rubbed it off. You’d come out of the shower pink as a newborn monkey. I guess I’m not ready for men to exfoliate. I’m still comfortable with the term scrub. America, ya gotta love it.