Don't Forget Your Towel

So it's the second week of the new year and I'm all ready to become the "new me!" You know, the one I've been working on for the past 20 years or so, the one who joins the gym in January and quits, exhausted, about mid-March. It's become an annual ritual of mine.

My wife loves me the way I am and doesn't give a fuck about my ever-growing midsection she endearingly refers to as my "baby." But I just can't take another year of feeling like shit and I'm determined to do it this time.

So it's my first day and I've already worked up a sweat just getting up the stairs to the gym. My anxiety is in full swing. But I press on, determined. I make it through the door and maneuver my way through a maze of sweaty equipment in search of my first stop on The Humiliation Express - the locker room. Face red, eyes averted, I scan the room for an empty locker. I come dangerously close to several half-dressed women on my search for a locker. I get dressed, work out without injuring or embarrassing myself and head back to the locker room, where I can achieve yet more humiliation, this time in the shower area.

In an increasingly heightened state of anxiety, I quickly undress, nearly flinging with my foot my now sweat-soaked underthings across the locker room. Keeping my head down low in the universal I'm-a-lesbian-so-I-must-keep-my-eyes-averted pose, I head to the shower, and quickly discover that I can't get the water turned on. Great, I'm naked, I'm sweaty and now I have to ask someone how to operate something a 4 year old has full command of. I look around and see an older, sort of out-of-shape woman and ask her for help. I figure she's fairly safe and won't judge me too harshly. After she looks at me pitifully she assists me and goes on her way, secretly mocking me for my pathetic pick-up line.

The shower goes well, I'm safe in the enclosed stall, and now I must face the ultimate challenge of the day. Getting out of the shower, drying off and returning to the locker room where I can dress and get the hell out of this horrible nightmare. Easy enough, right? Not so fast there, my portly pumpkin. The lockers are THAT way! Yep, first day at the gym, and I do a wrong turn right back out to the gym floor covered only in a towel (and only partially convered at that!) Luckily the shower had perked me right up and I was able to haul my ass back to the relative safety of the locker room with nary a stranger catching sight of my ghastly figure.

Ah, the joys of exercise. Let the new year begin.