Last week I wrote about my Panera confrontation. Received many kudos—as well as this e-mail. I promised not to reveal the man’s identity. And while the staff at jeffpearlman.com doesn’t condone violence in any form, well, I dig the pounding this guy rightly received …
This happened at a semi-upscale healthclub in NYC.
I had finished with a workout and shower and was sitting on a bench in the locker room putting on my clothes. A guy next to me was doing the same except he tossed his three used towels on the floor and bench. We got up to leave at the same time and I had to navigate around his laundry. This guy was going to walk off without tossing those towels in the hamper. It made me crazy because there are places to throw your wet towels every seven steps. Also, who wastes three towels? I could shammy an El Dorado with less material.
I stopped him and very casually said, “You’re not going to just leave your towels there, right?” He said something to the effect that if I didn’t like it could clean them up myself. We got in each other’s face and got a little more animated and I think I told him that I would stick a towel up his rear. When he called me the “towel police,” I took him to the floor. A trainer physically carried me out of the gym and a manager told me I was no longer welcome at that particular location. The manager couldn’t understand what the big deal was—which made me more irate. I felt like pulling a George Costanza in the Chinese restaurant and screaming “You know we’re living in a society!”
Apparently they don’t have rules against cleaning up your used towels.
My wife thought I was crazy for making a scene but for some reason the nerve of that guy set me off. I don’t usually go around policing people and I didn’t handle things in the most adult fashion but sometimes you have to let a guy know when he steps out of line. Right?
Feel free to post it you’d like. Just don’t use my name otherwise everyone will know that I am the clown willing to scrap over bad gym etiquette.
