I Want to Join the Gym!

Have you ever seen the episode of Friends where Chandler is trying to quit the gym? Well I felt like him but the opposite. I want to join the gym! If you haven't seen the episode, I will fill you in. He joins the gym and never goes, so they just keep taking the monthly fee out of his account. He tried to quit but they bring in this cute girl to try to convince him to stay with the gym. Ross thinks he's absolutely ridiculous for not being strong enough to quit the gym and paying for something he isn't using, so Ross goes with him for moral support. Well the cute girl gets to Ross and he joins the gym as well. They decide they'll be smart and just cancel their checking accounts at the bank that the monthly fee comes out of, but you guessed it! The woman you have to cancel your account with at the bank is cute too!



So all that to tell you that I finally joined the gym! But not after many hurdles. First of all, I joined 4 Seasons last summer when I was in between houses thinking I would have a place to work out for a couple months. When you join 4 Seasons, they have to process your paperwork and I had to come back a week later to get my card with my picture printed on it. You can imagine, I never went back. For the entire three month membership! I didn't even get my card made! Part of the problem was, I was ready to work out the day I signed. Secondly, I had to go back when my hair looked decent because, heaven forbid I have another bad photo ID, and let me tell you when you have naturally curly hair, it just looks like a helmet head even if you really did have a headband in! :-) So I never went back! Ridiculous and vain, I know!

So the next crazy rule is that once your membership expires, you have to wait an entire year before you can rejoin! So Holly has been bugging me to join the gym for months. But I knew the drill. I've seen Holly with gyms! She's like me. You have the best intentions, buy all the workout clothes, shoes, and then never go. I thought they're not getting my $46 a month again for nothing. However, Holly has proven me wrong. She has averaged 3-4 days a week at the gym and actually putting her matching workout outfits to work. So now that she's proved herself, I figured I'd join.

Oh but there's a catch! Remember that waiting period I was talking about? Well it wasn't over till August 31st. So about August 20th I called. They told me I would have to wait 11 days or pay retroactive the entire 11 months to be able to join 11 days early! Are you kidding me?! Um no. I'm not paying for 11 months that I did not work out at your gym to join 11 days early and what do you care. You take my money charge me for an entire year, seriously, what's 11 days?! But I would have to go through a manager in order to get special approval. I took down her number and I believe I said something to the guy about striking while the iron is hot and I may not want to join the gym in 11 days, but I digress!

So of course I never called the manager. I was going to be out of town at the end of August anyway, what's another two weeks at this point, right? So I decide the first week of September I'm going to join the gym. Holly says, just join and we can work out tonight. I said are you sure I can work out the same day I join? She said yes. She was wrong! If you join the gym Monday - Sunday, you can not work out until the following Tuesday. Yeah, you heard right. Any day of the week you join the gym, you have to wait until the following Tuesday, so why join on Monday. Might as well wait till Sunday.

So Sunday rolls around, and I know you're so excited for this story to end, but I'm almost finished. I go in and sign up. I tell them I want to pay month to month and they ask me for a voided check. I don't have a voided check! The lady on the phone that I confirmed everything with said nothing about a voided check! They can run my debit card for 6 months worth of payments but they can't use my debit card to set me up to pay monthly! Obviously frustrated and not exactly wanting to fork out $300 that day, the guy gives me the alternative of coming back the next day with a check. No, no, no! I know that trick! If I come back Monday(remember the Monday through Sunday rule?) you won't let me work out for another week. He's like, yeah that is our rule!

So........$300 later, I JOINED THE GYM! Not exactly the best of first impressions that Four Seasons has made on me, but they have fun classes nonetheless and a ton of my friends are members there, so I'll survive! :-)

And Tami, I got your comment and your text and I promise I'm not holding out on you with pictures. I really haven't taken any. It's been some bad hair days, and well if you reference up above, I don't take pictures when my hair looks bad! :-)