Brian Rogers Rogers Rabbits www.sunlive.co.nz

This week The Weekend Sun laments the striking down of Rogers Rabbits by a dose of myxomatosis or rabbit flu.

The good news is, we have his cousin as guest columnist, Jim Bunny, recently escaped from Auckland, who reports some striking differences in the social skills and sensibilities between there, and the humble folk in the provinces. 'For starters, they wave out; even if they don't know me,” says Jim. Today, he recalls some bizarre antics from the Jaffa Gyms that he hopes he won't find here.

When David Cunliffe uttered those immortal words 'I am sorry to be a man” … blokes cringed. It probably cost him a few crucial points in the opinion polls... if not the election itself.

But I now know he should be deified and celebrated rather than pilloried.

Because I too am sorry to be a man. Well not so much sorry…more disgusted and disappointed.

This about etiquette, gym etiquette and how men behave, or rather misbehave in the gym.

As Nadine Daher said: 'Etiquette is the fine tuning of education”. From what I have seen and experienced in the inner sanctum of the male showers and change rooms at my gym would indicate many men never made it to school.

I warn you now….the experiences I am about to share in the hope that the world will change, that blokes will change, is bound to offend.

So…gentle folk, children and ladies of the parish should go and make some cocoa while I trample over the sensitivities of everyone else.

Because this about bodily fluids, self-abuse, general abuse and out and out feral behaviour. And I share it for just $30 dollars a week at my local gym.

My body is in great shape but my spirit and masculinity is sadly shaken and compromised.

The gym provides facilities …some good ones….like hair dryers …yup!!! Even for the men. And for the benefit of some of the aforementioned males who never to school, there are signs explaining in a couple of languages that 'hair dryers are for the head”.

Not so!!

OUTRAGE #1
There he was in his buffed and naked maleness, for all to see, blow drying his nether regions in front of the mirror. No nappy rash for this Adonis … and his landing gear luxuriant, glossy and above all else…as dry as the towel he should have been using. But the job wasn't done… a full flourish of the said dryer and his rearward nether regions were as dry as the Gobi Desert.

Questions :
• What would the Missus say if one day at home she caught this Adonis using her hair dryer to dry his bits? I suspect she would have forcefully removed his bits!

• What about the poor guy who happened unwittingly along a few seconds later and used the same hair dryer for his its appointed purpose? The very same hairdryer that had been within a millimetre of a complete stranger's undercarriage was now a similar distance from his nose and face.

• Disgusting! What insentivity!

I haven't finished.

OUTRAGE #2
Another equally-uncaring insensitive bastard drops his Speedos , throws them on the sink top and proceeds to hair dry them dry. Not enough that he actually wears budgie smugglers but he blow dries them.

Questions
• Would this same insensitive and uncaring individual had the gall to dry his undies with the Missus' hairdryer on the basin of the ensuite at home. If he did you can bet he no longer has a missus.

OUTRAGE #3
An international NZ'er peels off his sweating designer gym gear…including those hideous lycra support shorts. He then proceeds to wash them, using the supplied liquid soap in the handbasin. The exact same place where two minutes later another decent bloke comes along to clean his teeth. Spare me!

Question – would he wash his toxic gym gear in the kitchen sink at home just before Mum comes along to peel the spuds for tea? I don't think so.

OUTRAGE #4
'Please do not expectorate” says another sign. Well at my gym the words 'please don't” is an open invitation to offend. Why do some men need to disgorge the contents of their nasal passage and all its contributories into the showers and surrounding passages at the gym. Is it because they are frightened to take the offending matter home? I believe it can be a criminal offence to spit in some countries…at my gym it seems people have a licence to offend.

I hate it! Please PLEASE stop it.

OUTRAGE #5
It was funning to piddle in the shower … but when we were just kids. That's what boys did... but they grow out of the habit …well they should grow out of it. At my gym it is just part of the geography to see the 'yellow river” flowing from points upstream. The urinal is two metres away…don't be lazy and disgusting guys!

Question – would you piddle in the ensuite shower at home? Would you leave the smell of stale wastewater in the shower for darling wife to clean up? You are a brave, brave man!

OUTRAGE #6
As I was seated on the bench in the change rooms drying myself… A bit of flying keratin landed on my leg. Yup … some steroid sponsored muscle mass was giving himself a pedicure three feet away. I am done complaining … enough said.

Not quite! Just yesterday I was minding my own business and doing my own thing in a shower cubicle. I was actually washing my hair. I had this telepathic sensation that someone was watching me. When I washed the soap clear, a three or four-year-old naked girl was standing there staring at me. Her father was in the cubicle next door. He grabs his daughter, gives me a glare and disappears back into his own cubicle. Why I ask, was I made to feel like a paedophile in the sanctity of my own blokes' changing room at the gym? All because that father was babysitting and didn't think it through.

NEXT WEEK: We smuggle Jim undercover into Tauranga fitness establishments, to observe any unusual habits of gym users south of the Bombays.