Girl on the Brink: Surviving Desperate Times with Desperate Measures

I can’t think of a more boring job than to sit on a chair in a lady’s locker room and make sure people don’t steal other people’s stuff.

The security guards who rotate at a new aquatic center in Northwest Washington, D.C., look bored, dressed in battleship gray and black. The only thing that sparkles is their security badge.

I don’t think this is a job for a Christian woman because of all the nudity. The guard doing duty on the day I changed back into my clothes after showering bent over to stare at the countertop so she wouldn’t see me standing fully nude rubbing body butter into my skin.

Then, there are the little boys who traipse in with their moms. The guards are subjected to mommy talk about private parts. “Stop looking,” a woman told her son who was eying me below the waist. “Mommy has one just like it.”

I have no doubt, but mine was, well, a different color and looks more like a seedless Chia Pet.

Some of the little boys I’ve seen are over 3-years-old—the age at which sharing a women’s locker room is no longer supposed to be appropriate. But their mothers, I believe, rationalize that it’s okay because a little sister stands in tow.

Nonetheless, once a child turns 3, their eyesight, I presume, gets less blurry. While having a little boy lock his eyes on me doesn’t make me feel uncomfortable, I’ve seen other women reach for a towel.

I bet the security guard can’t wait to get off work. I think that’s why I see a different one every time I swim, which is about four times a week.

If I were managing the facility, I’d let a male security guard work in the women’s locker room.

I don’t know of any guy who’d get bored protecting women’s underwear, and I don’t think he’d look the other way at the sight of a naked women or continue texting. I think their eyesight, despite glasses, is just fine at the age of adulthood.

I also think this would make a brilliant job creation strategy because it would turn frowns into smiles and revive the meaning of a service economy. I’d love to have a guy bend over backward and hand me a towel.