Poverty

In the gym at the Y one morning I noticed that two of the lockers in the changing room had locks on them, as well as having a piece of paper taped to them on which was printed the following:

ATTENTION

Lockers are for day use only. You have 24 hours to remove this lock and your belongings,

or we will do so and the contents will be bagged up.

Then, in writing, at the bottom:

‘This lock will be cut on June 6, 2025.’

The thing is, I saw these two lockers with this sign attached on June 8. So, the signs must have been attached on June 5 at the latest, but still no cut locks, just the warning.

I imagine that the Y was worried about causing padlock poverty. If the locks are cut off, they are, of course, useless, and then the person involved, if they care, would have to purchase another lock. (The Y also has signs saying that locks can be purchased at the front desk, but you can buy one at most any hardware store, or Canadian Tire.)

This is how things go at the Y. Lots of cajoling, lots of signs, but…..consequences? No. Consequences are, I suspect, thought to be oppressive. There are signs all over the place that bags and street shoes and such must not be left lying about in the workout area or in common areas, but stored in a locker. (Just not overnight.) I thought of that as I asked a young fella if he would move his gym bag so I could put a mat down and do my leg stretches on that same day.

Back to those padlocks, there are so many kinds of poverty to think about these days. I don’t think I have written previously about the tampon and sanitary napkin dispensers that were installed a year or so ago in the men’s restroom on the fourth floor of the SSC on the UWO campus. I have seen them in all the men’s restrooms on campus I have entered. I can only imagine they are in the ladies’ too, but I have not been in any of those. Entering one of those would be – well – wrong.

I will leave you to think about why those machines are in the men’s bathroom, but that they dispense these items for free is of course to combat the scourge of menstrual poverty. Or, as it is sometimes called, period poverty, although that second term suffers from non-specificity. It could, after all, refer to the use of too many run-on sentences.

I was amused to see, sometime after those dispensers appeared in the dudes’ bathroom, that they began sporting stickers that said ‘Do not take these items unless you need them’.

So, at what level of tampon dispensation in a guys’ – or for that matter gals’ – bathroom does one assume that people are taking them when they don’t need them? I cannot imagine. Well, actually it is kind of fun to imagine the discussion that must have ensued at the high-level UWO administrative meeting at which one agenda item was the rising level of depletion of menstrual products from free dispensers. I mean, just because we’re giving them away doesn’t mean they’re free, people. Economists have a pretty good idea of what happens when things are sold at a price of zero, but I suspect to administrators it came as a surprise. Much of what normal people find obvious comes as a surprise to most of the people who work in universities.

But, the administrators responded as administrators do – with stickers. Anything else would have been thought oppressive, I suppose.

All this got me thinking about poverty more. I get my hair cut by a very nice woman who also cuts ladies’ hair. A cut costs me $25, all in. I am sure no woman escapes from her or any other salon with so small a payment.

So….hair poverty. (Salon poverty?) I look forward to UWO opening a salon for women’s haircuts at a vastly reduced – perhaps zero – price. Justice must be served.

I expect to be back in the Y locker room in a couple of days. It’s an even money bet those ATTENTION notices are still taped to the same lockers, and that I’ll have to ask another person to move their gym bag so I can do my floor exercises.

It’s good to have things in life one can count on.