I'm so ashamed that I failed to channel my inner MN - a leisure cntr changing room, so I should have known what to do!

[Fatmomma99]

VERY rarely use the changing room at our leisure centre - usually go already dressed, but tonight had to get changed first. There's a note on the door of the gym changing room saying "this is for DRY sports, for swimming, please use the village changing room next door".

so I walk in, it's not a big space, and immediately there's a small girl peeling off her wet swimming costume, while the adult with her is sat on one of the approx 5 bench spaces, talking on the phone in a foreign language. There are 3 other adults in the room, one is also wet.
__
Benches are as so: L

The woman is sat on the far right of the across one, and the other 3 adults are near the L shaped one. The small girl is in the floor space next to the - one, which is the space that leads to the showers.

So the first thing I do is go next to the woman, and I assertively/passive aggressively pick up her bag and put it on the floor, put my bags in it's place and start getting changed.

That bag belongs to the wet woman, who has just used the showers. I am shamed. Woman on phone hasn't noticed.

I consider:
Turning to the other women to comment (don't have the balls)
Going out to reception to complain (can't imagine them doing anything, and the child at this point is naked)
Making a statement about the note on the door just out loud
Wonder what language the woman is speaking, and think it might be German, which I don't speak.

I do nothing.

I tell myself to channel my inner MN.

The woman on the phone finishes call, and interacts with child, she's clearly English.

I continue to do nothing, except keep getting changed. Blood boiling. Uselessly. I mentally try and decide the difference between pithy comments and PA comments, wonder what those might be, and try and muse on the difference. The best I mentally come up with is "perhaps if you weren't on your phone, you'd have seen the notice on the door". Decide it's rubbish, and don't have the balls to say it out loud anyway.
I consider getting out my phone and pretending to call someone and using the worst swear words, but can't bring myself to do it in front of a child who at this point (it's 1/4 to 6) is getting into her pajamas.

The woman is by now sitting on one of my socks. I pick the sock up aggressively. The woman apologizes and says she's very tired. I say nothing.

The child gets changed, they leave, I continue to say nothing.

I comfort myself with the fact that most MN-ers in changing rooms don't say anything either.

I am ashamed.

How could I have done that better, please?

I realize this thread is quite long for something relatively trivial!

[Fatmomma99]

ooo. Diagram fail (and I was channeling RudeElf). The _ is actually in front of the L more kind of like L --- (but higher)

[like anyone's going to care! But I owe it to RudeElf to get it right!]

[HortonWho]

Well if a woman is wet having just come from the showers, it's a pretty stupid policy, isn't it? Shower wet, swimming wet, what's the difference?

[Tanith]

Here - have a . You need it after all that typing.

Drink up, resolve to be stronger, stroppier and more viperlike next time then forget all about it.

[BuddyC4t]

I feel like I just read a passage from Adrian Mole.

[MovingOnUpMovingOnOut]

Why does it matter? Are you off duty lesiure centre police or summat?

[nocoolnamesleft]

You really can't expect sensible commentary without better diagrams.

[ReginaBlitz]

Seriously

[Balletgirlmum]

I'm totally confused as to what the problem was.

[arethereanyleftatall]

why did you move her bag off the bench and on to the floor, and then put your own there?

[VodkaValiumLattePlease]

Why the hell does it matter? How does this affect you to be so mad? Especially when you're too pussy to actually do anything about it.

[RudeElf]

Never ever have i had a mention on a thread!! I love it!

(I've had said nothing either OP)

[Fatmomma99]

The showers (which are MUCH nicer than the swimming pool ones) are provided to allow those who've used the gym or done a class to shower before they get changed. They have doors so the users can shower naked. The point about the other changing room is that it's for the people who use the pool.

I'm much less mature than him, BuddyC.

It was irritating Moving because it's such a small space - we're all on top of each other. The available floor space is around the size of an average bus shelter.

[RudeElf]

I'd have! Not i've had.

[Fatmomma99]

I bow to your diagram usage, RudeElf, and am shamed you saw mine.

[lookoutitsapiano]

I am so confused as to what happened and who was in the wrong here. I've read it several times

[LondonStill83]

I too am confused!

[Tartyflette]

I do understand and sympathise with changing room rage, OP. My particular bugbear - despite big signs at our gym/pool saying no food allowed in the changing rooms (due to mess and infestation) we see loads of Mums blithely giving their DCs biscuits, raisins, chocolate, cheese etc (some of which is inevitably dropped and just left on the floor in full view. Who does that? )
If my DC ever dropped anything i either picked it up myself or told them to. Ground-in raisins and biscuit crumbs underfoot are horrible in changing rooms, especially if you have bare wet feet. Yeeuuchl

[Fatmomma99]

Oh gosh NO, piano, why would you even read it once?

The kid and her adult were in the wrong in the sense that they shouldn't have been using that particular changing room, which is meant of older women and women using the leisure centre for activities other than swimming. They weren't doing any actual harm, other than taking up space they shouldn't have been in, in what is already a very small space.

I wanted to say something, and was a wimp and didn't, and wanted MN to give me good and pithy comments.

I did waffle a bit, though.

[lookoutitsapiano]

Ahhh I get you! Apologies.

Meh, I wouldn't have said anything either.

[Fatmomma99]

Thanks, Tarty (your username puts me in mind of festivals!). I'm glad I made sense to someone!

When I say "older" women, I don't mean it's a changing room for grannies, I mean that you have to be 16+ to do the classes and not sure what age to use the gym, but def older than the kid who was in there.

So it's not a space where you expect to encounter very little girls.

[Fatmomma99]

would your blood have boiled though, piano? And would you have spent all the time getting changed (including after they were long-gone) trying to think of THE perfect biting comment?

I think of myself as such a viper, but really (apparently) I'm a sloth!

No one's given me a suggestion but then, I didn't think anyone would get to the end.

[MrsSeanBean]

I don't get worked up about this sort of thing anymore, but I like your judicious use of sock pulling. Job done I say.

[TheFormidableMrsC]

I have to say, I am rather taken aback by the fact the small child came out of the pool, peeled off her wet swimsuit and put on her PJ's yuk

[HortonWho]

Thank you for explaining what showers do OP.

More to the point, either keep the people who shower in the same area as those who use the pool (both wet) or don't. You thought the woman who had taken showers was swimming, so you can't tell the bloody difference.

I applaud the sensible German woman who took no notice of the stupid, illogical notice. It's probably best you didnt pipe up, as her common sense would've been too confrontational for you.

[Birdsgottafly]

Is the other room any bigger, how did you know that it was full?

Was she German? perhaps she can't read English.

If I didn't have my glasses to hand, which I wouldn't coming out of the pool, I'd go in any available room and hope it wasn't the men's one.

I don't understand people getting into a rage, by these sorts of incidences, or shopping queues etc, though.