So I discussed the possibility of getting a membership to our local YMCA with my wife, the conversation went something like this:

Me: It seems I’m a little out of shape…

My Wife: Yes you are.

Me: Well, I was about to say maybe I should get a membersh…

My Wife: Yes you should.

Above: Everything I need to enjoy.

Many of you are probably judging me right now for choosing the YMCA. “Michael is pretty much the gayest thing since gay came to gay town,” you’re saying. I will tell you right now, the YMCA is not longer used for indiscriminate cottaging, but rather it is now a refuge for the poor, destitute and creepy to work out. Now mind you, I’m not poor, internet comedy writing is as lucrative as it is a chick magnet, but there are only two gym-type places to work out in my town, and the other is connected to a bar, a bar with delicious, fattening beer. No man needs that kind of temptation.

After getting my membership, I found myself completely at a loss. The only “workouts” I ever did in my heyday of being pure muscled sex were chin-ups, sit-ups, and push-ups. I also discovered, to my horror, that I would have to begin using a locker room.  Dun dun duuuuuun.

Previous to my YMCA membership, my experience with locker rooms was entirely limited to films and television, so naturally my mind was filled with visions of gratuitous nudity and desultory cruelty. Essentially I imagined the first five minutes of Carrie with dongs. Needless to say, the loss of my locker room virginity wasn’t as felicitous as I had hoped.

I also wasn't propositioned for filthy locker room sex by a single female porn star. What's up with that?

I learned two important lessons the first day at the YMCA:

1.)    Try to reduce nudity as much as you can.

2.)    Try to choose a locker as far away from any claimed lockers as possible.

How I Learned Lesson #1:

My foresight is remarkably poor. Perhaps I’m too distracted by my own constant wacky antics and shenanigans to think ahead, or perhaps my frontal lobe development is stunted by mercury leaking out of my amalgamated fillings. Either way, I often live life by blindly stumbling from one experience to another with very little preparedness, while this often leads to tomfoolery, hanky-panky and sexiness, it can also lead to excessive nudity (this is not always a bad thing).

On the plus side, I was recently named "France's Finest Detective."

After my first swimming attempt in several years-essentially me floundering around and gasping in the water for five minutes and sinking like a stone when my muscles began to spasm-I awkwardly thanked the 16 year old lifeguard for rescuing me and returned to the locker room to disrobe and shower. My first thought was to put my swimming trunks in a safe place, so I returned to my locker, ditched the trunks, foolishly failed to grab my towel, and strutted back to the showers wearing nothing but my “flesh ensemble” (You try to come up with an original alternative to “birthday suit”).

When I got back to the showers and thoroughly drenched myself, I realized that I had forgotten my body wash. I debated for a moment about whether I should use the communal soap supplied as a courtesy by the YMCA, but I begrudgingly decided to go get the body wash when I found some suspicious looking hairs in the soap. By this time, the locker room was starting to get full. I walked past the group of business men chatting about whatever business men chat about (IRAs? Surety Bonds? Hookers?), they all acted like they weren’t impressed by turning away and sighing heavily. I again failed to grab my towel.

"The hooker you banged had a self-directed IRA? High-five!"

My second attempt at showering went swimmingly (HA!), and I managed to cleanse most of the chlorine off of my body. Getting a bit sick of the whole ordeal, I picked up my pace while returning to my locker, I wasn’t quite jogging, but I was certainly wasn’t ambling or moseying either. As I clipped my way into the locker room I passed a 40-something year old man teaching his young child to tie his shoes. They both had the misfortune of looking up right as I dashed by, flopping my way merrily back to my locker, the man gasped and directed his child to look away  as if my penis was some Lovecraftian horror that would drive a man mad by the mere description of it.

My penis, glimpsed briefly off the coast of Japan.

Later, when I consulted the wise folks on the Cracked forums for advice, they confirmed that I should have reduced my nudity as much as possible, and although it is natural to be nude in a locker room, it isn’t natural to wander back and forth in the buff, and it especially isn’t natural to move in any fashion which will cause swinging, bobbing, twirling, flapping or flopping.

How I Learned Lesson #2:

Due to my maddening desire to get a locker as far away from others as possible, I chose the farthest corner of the locker room. For the record, this wasn’t due to modesty; it was just good old fashioned misanthropy. Unfortunately, I failed to notice that the locker I had chosen was in a “prime” section of the locker room, and that it was between two other claimed lockers.

As I busied myself with my towel, I didn’t notice the massive, looming shape behind me. I jumped as a gruff voice grunted “‘Scuse me” and before my mind could fully grasp the situation I was in, the worlds fattest, sweatiest, hairiest and nudest man in the world squeezed beside me to get to the locker to the left of mine. “Okay, don’t panic,” I thought, “just make yourself as small as possible and you might avoid finding out what his skin feels like today. ” I very cautiously toweled myself off, trying to move as little as possible, memories of playing “The Floor is Lava” as a child flooded back to me, only this time the lava was flabby, bristly flesh, and the stakes were much, much higher.

What I'm saying is that Michael Moore could have been hiding in this man's cavernous armpits, and I would have been none the wiser.

I have never been a lucky man. I have never won a contest or raffle in my life, and I often get completely fleeced in poker. However, it seems for the first time in my life I was about the beat astronomical odds. Not only did the owner of the locker to my right come to claim his clothing, he also happened to be the worlds second fattest, sweatiest, and hairiest man, and unfortunately for me he was just as nude as the man to my left. I could only stand and gape at the situation I had found myself in, completely sandwiched between two corpulent meat mountains. I wish I could tell you right now that I managed to grab my clothes and worm out of their way. I wish I could write that I have absolutely no clue what their pileous naked bodies felt like against mine. I wish I could sleep without feeling like I was being suffocated again by that sea of coarse, fleshy awfulness.

The good kind of meat sandwich.

I wish a lot of things.

I can only hope my experience can serve as a reminder to all who read this.  Please, when you are in a locker room, and you purposefully avoid being near other claimed lockers, think of me and say a little prayer.

Editor’s Postscript: I added the photo of the hot locker-room babe and the accompanying caption to Micheal’s original article. Shortly after the article was published, Micheal contacted me with his protests, saying that he had never said that he wasn’t having all kinds of crazy pornstar sex in the locker room.

So this is my lengthy public apology to Micheal. Micheal, I am sincerely sorry for implying that you ever go without sex. I know how much you hate that.