In answer to a reader’s question:
“How does a man end up trapped in a shower stall in a women’s locker room for nearly four hours?”
Here is the answer:
It’s the fall of 1990. I’m visiting my girlfriend at Quinnipiac University. She’s living in a woman’s dorm. As we’re getting ready for bed, I ask her where to shower in the morning.
Even then, I was waking up well before the crack of dawn to write.
She told me I could use the women’s shower room across the hall. “Just put a sign – “Guys in shower – on the door.”
So I did.
But then the sign promptly fell off the door, so while I was in a shower, standing behind a rubber curtain., I heard the door to the room open. I assumed that a woman was entering to use the toilets on the other side of a dividing wall, but a moment later, I realized that a handful of women had entered to use the showers.
There was a moment when I had a chance to say something—”Hello! Guy in shower!”—but I panicked and said nothing. I froze. My towel and clothes were also on the other side of the room, sitting on a bench, meaning I could not get from the shower to my stuff without crossing about a dozen feet of tile completely naked.
Poor planning on my part.
Today, I would certainly speak up if I found myself in a similar circumstance. I would undoubtedly use humor to deflect the potential awkwardness of the situation and find a way to escape with everyone’s dignity intact. But I did not possess the same level of confidence back then that I enjoy today, so I froze, fearing what the women might assume had they known a man was standing in one of the shower stalls as they prepared to shower.
So I decided to simply wait for them to finish showering and leave, and then I would beat a hasty retreat. So I kept the water running and waited, except while they showered, more women entered.
Then more and more and more.
Not only did these women take showers, but they also hung out. Talked. Laughed. Gossiped. Blow-dried their hair. It seemed like no one was in a hurry to finish and leave.
I waited for nearly four hours, hoping for the shower room to clear. Too afraid to speak up. Too scared to say something. The longer I stood under the water, the more impossible it became to reveal my presence.
I felt so stupid and so helpless.
My girlfriend, who liked to sleep late on the weekends – which you should never do if you value the quality of your sleep, your health, and your possible longevity – had no idea that her boyfriend was trapped in the shower.
Finally, after what seemed like hours, the room went quiet, and before the door could open again, I sprinted from the shower to my towel, wrapped it around my waist, collected my clothing, and left.
Exiting the shower room, I saw my sign lying facedown in the hallway.
When I returned to my girlfriend’s dorm room, I found her still asleep. It was just after 9:00. I hadn’t written a single word yet. I was starving. My fingers looked like prunes. I was still feeling stupid.
When my girlfriend finally awoke, I told her about the incident. She laughed.
“Sticking a ‘Guys in shower’ sign on the door doesn’t keep girls from taking showers,” she said. “It just warns them a guy’s taking a shower, too, in case they want to stay covered up. But most of us don’t walk around the shower room naked anyway.”
“So I could’ve still found myself in a shower room full of women?” I asked. “Even if the sign hadn’t fallen off the door.”
“Yes,” she said. “Do you think we let guys just take over our shower room if they need to shower?”
The next morning, I hoofed it over to the men’s dorm to shower.
It was the fall of 1990. I was 19 years old and not even close to being confident enough to handle showering in a room full of women, even if they knew I was there.
Young Matt still had so much to learn.
