Weekend Plans

So I’m thinking about joining a health club. My fat jeans are getting tight and my favorite supercute tops make me look like a sausage roll as packed by Lucy Ricardo.

I started the search with some phone calls. Except no one wants to give you any information over the phone. Because they know that while you are safely tucked in your home or office, you are still capable of basic arithmetic and common sense and will be able to figure out that you can accomplish the same end with a pair of running shoes and a Rodney Yee video (yummy!). Total annual cost: $200 or thereabouts (provided you actually use the running shoes and thus need to replace them every six months; less if you just sit on the couch and just watch Rodney).

After failing to get any useful information over the phone, I set up an appointment at a health club to get a tour and talk about “my needs.” My needs are fairly simple. I need to get a simple, straight answer about how much this will cost. I also need to try out the facilities before committing my grandchildren’s retirement funds.

Joining a health club is as difficult as buying a car---and nearly as expensive. First, I talk to the salesman. He uses every trick: flipping through the price book too quickly for me to read anything, speaking at a breakneck pace, throwing numbers around to confuse me, trying to swap one fee for another---the other being much higher---yet somehow I’m “saving” money that way. He even tried the superslick bonding---asking me what I thought of the Pope when it came out that I’m Catholic. But having been burned by salesmen before, I wasn’t falling for it. I wanted a simple, straight answer and a trial membership.

So he called his manager. Who then flipped through the same price book at the same too-much-Red Bull pace while talking about plans. There’s the One Club plan, the All Clubs plan, the Every Other Day plan, the Other Every Other Day plan, the Family plan. I’m certain there’s a Blonde with a Double-D Cup plan, but, then again, if I qualified for that, I wouldn’t need to go to the gym. The manager juggled numbers again, although by that time, I had lost all ability to add double digits and couldn’t remember if I was a single girl who wanted to work out on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays or a retired mother of four who wanted to work out on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

But, of course, I had to decide RIGHT THEN if I wanted the super special, never again offered discount price (you know, the price that they offer every week).

In the end, I never got my simple, straight answer. But I did get my trial membership. Which leads to my weekend plans.

Friday
One guess what I’m doing on a Friday night.

Nope! Wrong! Thanks to my brand-spankin’ new trial membership, I’m going to a yoga class. Then, I’ll, well, erm, yeah, you know---DVDs and magazines. And knitting.

Saturday
* Making up hours at work.
* Dog park, if the weather is okay. Forecast is for thunderstorms.
* Cleaning the apartment. Or at least taking out the trash. ‘Tis stinky.
* A movie matinee if the weather is lousy. Still haven’t seen Crash or Kung Fu Hustle. And now Layer Cake and Mad Hot Ballroom are out, too.
* Overidentifying with Status Anxiety.

Sunday
* Swimming at the health club pool and praying that no one else is around to see me in a bathing suit.
* More praying. You know, at mass.
* Possible trip to a craft store for yarn. I’m working on a tank top and can’t decide if the yarn I have is pretty or makes me look like an Easter egg.
* Hitting a trail with the puppy. Again, weather dependent.
* Surreptitiously reading the gossip magazines at Barnes & Noble while sipping a chai and nibbling on a chocolate chip cookie.