FitRec

I have found the university Fitness and Recreation Center (sic). I found it because apparently I need access in order to to join the karate club, as I intend to do, and also because I decided to go for a swim. Now, I'm please to say that it's very impressive. Four floors of sportshalls, squash courts, cardio machines, resistance machines, running tracks, punch bags, competition and recreation pools, and spas. After a good wander around gawping at the facilities, I found a locker room (read changing room) for the swimming pool. After I'd got changed I realised that there were no lockers free. Well this was strange, given that there were about 200 lockers in the room and there were certainly not 200 men using the pool! I put my T shirt back on and went back outside to speak to somebody official.

"This might seem like a stupid question, but how do I use a locker in the changing rooms?"
"Sorry, they're all taken I'm afraid"
(Yes I can see that) "By people who are not here at this moment in time?"
"Er, yes."
"So where do I put my stuff then if I want to go for a swim?"
"You can use one of the day lockers if you want"
"Right, so where are they?"
"Down the corridor down there" (points away from the changing rooms)
"So I've got to get changed in there, walk the length of the building over there in my swimming shorts to deposit my stuff and walk all the way back to the changing rooms to enter the pool. Is that what you're telling me?"
"Yes. I'm afraid it's not very well designed"
(Cheers, Sherlock) "No it's not"
"I can put you on the waiting list for a locker if you want, but it's a long wait."
"How long, exactly?"
"About a year"
"A year! OK, well you might as well put me down anyway. Do I have to pay for the day lockers?"
"Not if you've got a lock"
"What if I haven't?"
"You can hire one from us for a dollar"
(Ah here we go) [Sigh] "OK then"
...

After this palaver, I eventually entered the pool area (past the clearly incorrect sign saying "Pool Closed"), and wandered over to the recreational pool, which was slightly smaller than the competition pool and had various polystyrene shapes and rubber rings floating in it, along with a serpentine channel around which a current flowed and an associated spa. I was about to enter the water when a life guard stopped me and said the only bath I could enter without a swim cap was the spa. Bloody hell, all I wanted was a float in a swimming pool! I wasn't going to go back out again to buy a swim cap so I contented myself with sitting in the spa ("Do not stay in spa for longer than 10 minutes to avoid overheating") for 40 minutes. When I showed no signs of being dangerously overheated, I got out and asked the life guard if there was a sauna, expecting the answer to be no. Yes there was, he informed me but it's only available to faculty and staff, he was afraid. Aha! My luck had turned! I gleefully informed him that I was a member of staff and duly acquired the code to the staff changing room. Which was so much nicer than the student changing rooms! And it had a sauna with stones on the heater and everything! So from then on I've started every morning with a dip in the spa and a sauna. It's a very nice way to start the day. And, given that it's Friday today, I'm going to finish it in a very nice way by wetting the inside of me instead.