A-holes and the people who enable them.

I belong to a pretty nice gym. This is my family's only extravagance. It's BIG, it's clean, and it's fancy. Our monthly dues are like a mortgage payment but we are willing to pay it so we don't have to go to the national chain gym that we used to belong to.

I actually wouldn't have minded that national chain so much if their locker rooms were nicer. I'm not saying that their decor was ugly. I'm saying that I don't really like to see poop smeared all over the toilet seat.

I kid you not, at least once a week I would find a toilet with poop all over it. Smeared. Like some one's toddler reached into their diaper and finger painted on the toilet. And by the looks of that poo, that toddler had to be over 150 pounds and liked to eat A LOT of fiber.

Smeared poo is something I have never seen at our new gym. The only problem with our new gym is that people seem to get a sense of entitlement when they pay that much for a membership. For some reason the rules don't apply to them.

They waltz past the sign in the Women's Locker Room that says "Cell phones not allowed." while gabbing on their phone. Loudly. They happily do their runners stretch underneath the sign that says, "No stretching in the lounge area." If this were the '70's I bet they would stand in the cardio theatre smoking while they leaned against the "No smoking sign". Helllooooo?

Why are they so special that they don't need to follow the rules? And if they don't follow the rules, should I stop following them too?

No. I don't think I could. I'm too much of a rule follower. If everyone did this it would be complete anarchy out there!

They will ignore the signs that require them to sit on a towel while naked in the sauna. Naked stranger butts will be everywhere! Stop signs will become like a standoff at high noon, but with cars instead of guns. No one will allow the other person to go. They will all screech into the intersection, stop an inch from each other's bumper and proceed to honk and gesture out their windows. And they won't get anywhere.

It's almost like the polite people have to acquiesce to the assholes of the world just to keep things moving. And this I think is why it pays to be an asshole. There are still more polite people then a-holes.

A-holes are the adult equivalent of schoolyard bullies who push people around because they know they can. The people who ruin my zen locker room experience and steal my quiet time were probably the same people who shook kids down for their lunch money in grade school. It worked then and it works now.

So what should I do? Say something?

Um. No.

As my husband always says about us Americans, "If you call someone out for being an asshole. You will become the asshole." And everyone who once agreed that the person was an asshole will now look at you with scorn because you actually said something.

I don't have a good answer to this. There are less of them than there are of us nice people, but they are still getting their way. Squeeky wheel gets the grease and all that. I guess I can sit around and whine about it or I can try to let it go.

Man is that hard. I do my best to hobble up on top of my high horse and tell myself that at least I'm not like them. At least I try to be polite to my fellow citizens. And I have never - at least in my conscious memory - ever smeared poop all over a toilet seat. On purpose anyway...