jwjourney.com

Don't go to Big Cheesy National Chain Gym (BCNCG). Don't get suckered in by the cavernous concrete facility or the groovy cardio machines with built-in TVs or the dimly lit cinema room with wide-eyed nymphs riding ellipticals and watching Grease on the big screen. Don't be fooled by the coupon for the free smoothie and courtesy tan. And especially don't let the slimy manager slither his hand in yours and say, "What can I do to make you sign up today?"

Because you won’t be able to escape without leaving your credit card number. Because if you gripe enough you can get him to waive the $200 “initiation fee” and the $69 “processing fee,” and he’ll even ease up on your first month’s fee since it’s midmonth. (Oh, and here he won’t mention that $25 annual “maintenance fee.” What the hell?) Slimy manager will even tell you how you can cancel within 30 days and get alllll your money back. But you CANNOT think about it over the weekend. You CANNOT even WALK out the door and have them honor that offer. You MUST sign up RIGHT THEN AND THERE or else that offer will just slip away like green slime fresh out of the can.

Because after you sign up and walk past the big concrete desk and shiny happy people behind it, you will know in your gut that you made the wrong move. That you had been had. Suckered. Thank god, by law, you have those three days to nullify a contract – especially ones made under duress.

Oh, and that fab-u-lous 30-day cancellation guarantee? Yeah, better read that first, too. Because in order to cash in that jewel you have to make (and keep) an appointment with the personal trainer and visit the gym at least 10 or so times during that month. Thank goodness you can fall back on that three-day cancellation, except in order to make that happen you have to haul your fat body to the post office send a certified letter to the General Manager at the gym and he has to get it in three days and you have to look up the correct address because the zip code is WRONG on the contract. Clever. 

And if that isn’t pleasant enough, then you have to check your bank statement and see that they have not refunded your money and they even withdrew the first month’s fee. And so now you have to call a girl in the “accounting” office who handles all the “cancellations” and you have to hear that you are in the “stack” of cancellations for that particular location and the GM just has to be prodded sometimes. But it will eventually get sorted out and you will think back on all that time you wasted going to BCNCG in the first place and how you should have been forewarned of danger when you allowed New Girl to lure you back to the conference area where she sat at the only available seat at that table, making you walk across the area and grab and pull over your own seat. (My first exercise?)

And then you visit your old all-girl gym that has no cinema room or swimming pool and the only TVs are on the wall. And they tell you that it’ll cost a whopping $25 a month to rejoin and there is no “initiation fee.” If you want to pay the year up front, that’ll just be $150. Yes, that is correct - $150. They say you don’t have to sign up now, you can think about it. Heck, they say, come and give it a whirl for a visit or two. 

And you look around and realize you are home again.