Dear Viking!: Why Bother to Shower?

Swim Brief readers email us questions all the time.  For real.  What, do you think we would just make up questions from imaginary readers for a phony advice column?  What kind of a website do you think this is?  So, welcome to our newest recurring feature, "Dear Viking."

The Viking thinks hard so you don't have to...

Dear Viking!

I swim all the time.  It's not like I reek of BO or anything.  Do I really need to bother to take a shower?

Dear concerned reader who is obviously a real person,

Why bother?  I know!  Right?!  Swimmers don't shower... well, at least not to rub off all the smells.  Sometimes I used to just kind of hang out in there to get warm and occasionally pee on my friends, but I have never really understood why those silly divers use all those soaps and lotions and stuff.  Swimmers smell like chlorine-- and what does chlorine smell like?:  CLEAN.  That's what.

Is it a coincidence that Mr. Clean is bald?  Hells no.  He shaves his legs too.  Most people don't know he was a 47 in the 100 fly back in the 70's at Auburn and he still tears it up at Masters Nats.  Just look at him.  The dude can sprint.

The eyebrows ain't white because he's old.  It's because of the pool.

Of course, if you were otherwise detained and unable to practice for a few weeks I could understand wanting to wash up, but if you actually read The Swim Brief you are probably pretty hardcore and the only way you would miss practice is if you were trapped in a cave with your arm pinned under a rock.  It's not like you could just shower there anyway.  Just run in place until you break a sweat.  There is enough chlorine stored in your pores to give you a sweat-released just-swam smell for at least a good month after you retire.

Will my girlfriend still love me if my scent fades away?

You know what drives me really crazy?  Special products that advertise like we need to wash off the chlorine smell. What?!  Get rid of my free cologne?  Chicks dig the cloroxy-fresh smell.  Or at least the chicks who smell like chlorine do, and it's not like you have time to hang out with the ones who don't, right?  Been there. Civilian girls will never understand you.  Stick with your kind.

Really?  Does anyone see this picture and think they don't want this to happen to them?  Remove the word "Don't" and you have the most effective advertisement for joining swim team ever.  

Shower?  Nah.  Just get in your two-a-days, wear the smell like a badge, and quit worrying about it.  You smell fine.



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