I Wish I Was Making This Up

In a moment of loathing my own recent laziness I decided to check out some gyms around my place. I'd been dreading looking at other gyms after leaving the Gym of Dreams when we moved, but the time has come to move on and get back on the proverbial horse. As lovely as napping every day after school is, I don't want to become one of the women you see on Dr. Phil who's so huge she has no other option but to have the Jaws of Life cut an extra space in her doorway so that she can be airlifted to the nearest hospital for gastric bypass.

Or something like that.

Anyway, I decided to start with the closest gym to ease myself back into the process. On the short walk over there I mentally prepped myself; I knew there was no way it could compare to my beloved eucalyptus-scented place of sweatitude and I didn't want to be disappointed in a normal machine-ridden gym. There was just no way of knowing just how ghetto this gym could be.

This gym- let's just call it, oh, say, POW- was in the filthy dirty basement of what could comfortably house a meth lab but instead housed a number of decrepit, squeaky machines. I entered through a haze of Newport Light smoke emanating from three or four POW employees and passed through the metal detector, approaching a desk manned by four people. Then I waited. I stood there for about 3 full minutes, patiently waiting for them to stop yapping about their co-worker who had, apparently, just been arrested for dealing. When they finally deigned to grace me with a glance, I informed them I was interested in checking out the facility. Already regretting my decision, my newfound tour guide meandered around the windowless concrete dungeon, sometimes pointing at machines, but mostly silent. Until we got to the woman's locker room.

"You wanna see the locker room?" She looked hard at me.

"Uhhh... sure?"

"Good. Some people say, I don't need to see no locker room. And I say, whatever, you DO need to see the locker room because you can't know no gym if you don't see no locker room! You get?"

"Oh, yeah. Sure. Let's see the locker room," I nodded vigorously.

"Yeah, you needs ta see it to know it. Like see here? I always use the handicap changing room because it's twice as big as the regular room. It's like you got a whole room to yourself! Plenty of room for your wheelchair, or your shit." She looked at me hard again. "Ya also got some special 'quipment down in here for women only. Ya know, for your thighs and shit."

Things get a little hazy here. I think I probably gulped and nodded, looking around for someone else in case this girl decided I was challenging her in the locker room and wanted to throw down. Instead, she ushered me back out to a row of cubicles where I sat, relieved to be out of the dirty diaper-smelling locker room.

"Ok, ya got two options: one, you can pay $499 down and $19.99 a month, which is good foreva, like, for your life. Or you can pay $299 down and $29.99 a month. Right?"

"Well, I was kind of thinking I'd like to try the gym out for the day, to see how I like it?" I have a bad habit of posing my statements as questions when I'm nervous.

She looked at me suspiciously. "It's $20 for a day pass. You got $20 to try it out? You might as well sign up now."

I'm sure I looked as confused as I felt. I was dizzy from so much fluorescent lighting. "You're not going to let me try the gym out?"

"Oh, alright. Just leave your license behind so I can fill out all your paperwork while you're working out. Cuz I know you're going to join and it takes me foreva to get that paper shit done."

I slid my license over and got up to leave.

"You probably wanna keep your bag with you unless you got a lock for the lockers," she warned as I walked away.

Shaking my head, I snagged the nearest elliptical machine and plugged my headphones into the tv, making sure my bag was in plain sight next to me. The tv blared some Food Network show into my ears and two guys with dreadlocks stared at me while I futilely clicked the volume down button. Giving up, I fired up my ipod and got to the ellipticalizing. Almost immediately I noticed a shrill shrieking sound. Looking around in annoyance, I suddenly realized that it was me making the noise. Every upswing of my left leg a big "SHHHhrrrreee" wheezed out of the machine. Oh, so that was why it was the only available machine. Great.

I gathered up all my stuff and scoped out the treadmills, grabbing one as someone stepped off. Once I got going, I glanced to my right and noticed that the little twelve year old boy had stopped his machine to stare at me. Thinking if I ignored him someone would eventually come to collect him, I persevered. Ten minutes later he was still staring thickly at me and I could take no more. I wiped down the machine and stalked back over to the cubicles of doom. Then the real fun began.

"Yeah, I was just trying out some machines, so I need to get my license back."

"Ok, well why don't you take a seat. The assistant manager will be over to discuss plans with you."

"No, but I..."

"Just take a seat."

A very large man came to sit down next to me. "Well, missy, what do you think of our gym?"

I explained I wanted to look at some other gyms and that if I decided I wanted to join I'd come back.

"Well here's what I'm gonna offer you. We had this deal, see, that ended on Sunday. Like, last Sunday that already past. It was for $49.99 down and $19.99 a month. Normally I couldn't give you that price, since it's already past Sunday, but someone just cancelled so I have just one opening. You must be a lucky miss."

"Oh. Well, that's nice of you, but I still want to check out some other places."

"Hold up, hold up. If you don't take this now, someone else will. And that would be dumb, see? Cuz I want to give this to you, you know, like a little sumptin sumptin on the side?"

I stared at him dumbly. Did I not know what sumptin sumptin meant? Was he saying he wanted... no, it couldn't be.

He winked at me.

"Errrm... well, I'm going to take a look at other gyms. I know I might miss this special "deal" and all, but I haven't looked anywhere else yet..." I rambled on in my flustered state.

"Hold up. My regional manager is here. I definitely can't hold this deal for you, definitely not. But maybe I can."

At this point I was already partly angry at being corralled, partly amused at the situation, and mentally composing this post in my head.

The zit-faced regional manager limped over. "I hear you want me to hold the special deal just for you?" she demanded.

"No, I was just saying I'd like to take a look at other places," I reiterated, "I understand if you can't hold something for me."

"Well let me tell you what we can do. I can do you one better than that special. How about if I wave that $49.99 fee and just sign you up for the $29.99 a month? Manager's special." She leaned in conspiratorially.

I brushed her too-bleached hair out of my face and repeated my desire to shop around for places.

"Well you're in luck. Our actual owner is here today. Let's see what he can do you for."

"No, really, I..."

She stalked off, returned, and told me to head to the "back of the stalls" to meet with the owner.

"Well hi there, NPW. I'm GreasySalesman. You're a tough customer, but I like tough customers. So here's what I can do: you sign up today, right now, and I'm going to give you the $19.99 for membership for life, no money down, and I'm going to throw in a TV. A free TV! You'd be an idiot not to take this deal. A real idiot. In fact, if any of my salespeople didn't get you to take this deal, I'd fire them myself."

My reaction to his deal must not have been what he was looking for- probably a laugh or a face- because he suddenly looked angry.

"Look, there's no better deal at any gym in town. You know you're going to come here. Just sign up today. You're a real dope if you don't just take this and I won't be in tomorrow to give you this deal, so this is it."

"Uhhh. No, I don't think so."

He threw his hands up. "Fine. Nice to meet you." I got up to leave and I swear I heard him mutter "Dope" under his breath.

I finally reclaimed my license and left, TVless, to call Chris and regale him with stories of poor salesmanship.

As I was making dinner that night, around 8:00 p.m., my phone rang. "Hi, this is Mattie from POW? The owner told me to call you to let you know he'll be here till 9 if you decide you want the deal still. Should I have him call you?"

I looked at my phone like it was playing a joke on me. And then I clicked END and laughed.

In all my vast imagination, I don't think I can picture anything worse than being a POW "member for life". It's like a death sentence with no hope of pardon. So much for easing back into things, eh?