Panic!

“Wait, where is my gym bag? My clothes? My phone? My keys?”

My body leot into overdrive as I found my mind both racing and battling to slow down.

“How did someone figure out my locker code? Who would do such a thing in a public locker room? Maybe somebody saw them walk out with my tote. But what do I do? I’m buck/butt naked!”

My mind kicked into a different gear - maybe I’m looking in the wrong locker. (Funny I thought how my initial reaction was to blame someone else and make me the victim. I’m not too proud about that.)

I opened all the lockers in my area — nothing. Back to the thought of who would do such a thing. I began to feel the wooziness from the adrelkne rush — probably some cortisol, too.

“Ok, I need to find a gym employee and tell them my bag has been stolen. I’m sure they’ve dealt with this before. That’s why there are signs everywhere warning us to lock up our stuff. Gosh, will they lend me clothes? Maybe I can use my “find my phone” to track the thief.”

As I stood in the locker room, processing these thoughts faster than the speed of light, I heard “Sir do you need to get in here?” A gentleman was asking if I needed to get into the area of the next set of lockers. “Thank you” I replied as I thought sitting down would allow me to come back to some level of equilibrium.

I sat down. I looked at the locker in front of me. Three of the four dials were set to 0; the top one wasn’t it. “Odd,” I thought, “looks like someone else set their lock the way I set mine.”

I bet you can figure out the rest of the story. 🤪