Commence with the gymmery...

I finally decided on a gym to try for awhile, being LA Fitness. I've heard good and bad things about the chain, but after weighing the pros & cons of the various options in the area, I thought this would suit for the time being. Could not get over what they wanted me to pay for this membership, seriously. I spoke to friends who go there, I did my own research, and then decided on a range I was willing to pay. I want to be more active and start working out, but not to the detriment of my all ready limited budget.

Called LAF around noon yest.to arrange an appt.for a tour after work. Specifically told XYZ gentleman that I was not sure exactly when I'd get there, only that it would be somewhere between 5:30p & 9p as I was working late. That was fine, he'd be closing anyway, just drop in and ask for him. Duder then calls my cell 3x (4:40p, 5:58p & 6:28p) to confirm our “appointment”. ::raises an eyebrow:: Eh-heh.

Arrived at 7p, met Mr. XYZ, took tour. Gym seems nice, there appear to be plenty of machines I like avail.(even @ 7p when it's still a bit crowded from the leftover after-work crew), etc. Check. Locker rooms look good, there are probably enough lockers, more than a couple showers avail., clean. Check, check, check, check. No towel service. N/A, could care less. Pool if I ever wish to use it & evening yoga classes included with membership. Check, check, okay. Return from tour and Mr. proceeds to try and convince me that the following rates & reg.fees are reasonable:

Option #1: Initial Registration Fee - $249, then a mo.-to-mo.fee of $39.99
OR
Option #2: Initial Registration Fee - $149, then a mo.-to-mo.fee of $49.99

o_@!!! ::coughs:: I beg your pardon, are you serious? Oh you are, I see. There’s more? Well it can’t be a good thing, you’re starting to shift uncomfortably in your chair. Oh, I have to pay the first and last mo’s bill along with the initial registration fee to sign up? Uh-huh, I see. Why is that, considering it’s a month to month contract? Oh, it’s just like an apartment. Mm-hm. Okay, you know I’m not moving *into* the gym, right? Ha ha! Yes, wasn’t that funny? Oh, it’s just company policy. I see, okay, so my *real* options #1 & #2 are either $330 today, then $40/mo.after, or $250 today, then $50/mo.after. ...I see.

I did my research beforehand, checking other locations, rates, etc., so this wasn’t gonna fly for me. Politely but firmly tell Mr. XYZ I appreciate the info., but the combined fees were simply far more than what I was looking to pay and I would need to continue researching other locations. Answered w/the names of those locations and some idea of rates. Mr.XYZ decided he needed assistance, going in search of Ms.Asst.-in-Charge-of-Stuff. Ms.smiled and sat down, extolling the virtues of the gym all over again, then started explaining how the reg.fee was “standard” and proceeded to break everything down week-by-week into wee tiny pieces of itself, like I didn’t know how to do math and would be tricked into snatching up the offer by seeing a handwritten “$9/wk!” on a piece of scrap paper. Yes, thank you Ms., that’s terribly exciting. You do know that all those little numbers have a nasty habit of adding together again to make the same, much larger number I just explained I’m not going to pay, right? Here, I shall Math as well. It is a word problem, see?:

Person E.wants to work out, but needs option to go to other location in 3 or 4mos.should she prefer. Fitness Location X says payment for such is $250 today + monthlies or $330 today + monthlies. What amounts would she *really* pay per mo., over the course of 3 or 4mos., with either option?

Answers:

Option #1 (over 3 mo.period) - $330 (reg.+2 mos.coverage) + $40 = $370/3 = $123.3/mo. = decidedly not $9/wk.
Option #1 (over 4 mo.period) - $330 (reg.+2 mos.coverage) + $40 = $370/4 = $92.5/mo. = nope, not $9/wk.
Option #2 (over 3 mo.period) - $250 (reg.+2 mos.coverage) + $50 = $300/3 = $100/mo. = still not $9/wk.
Option #2 (over 3 mo.period) - $250 (reg.+2 mos.coverage) + $50 = $300/4 = $75/mo. = O HAI, not $9/wk.

Ms.decided she needed help, too, and went in search of Mr. Much-Higher-Boss-than-She-Was. Mr.#2 also extolled virtues of gym, taking the "commitment" tack and reorganizing the numbers all over again for my benefit. Informed that I was simply reticent to pay anything nearly that high, and that other gyms had @ least much lower reg.fees, but also mo'ly fees. After what can only be referred to as a very polite staring contest involving several nods of acknowledgment, Mr. Boss presented me with the following equation.

Option #3 (over 3 mo.period) - $79 (reg.fee) + $70 (2 mos.coverage @ $34.99/mo.) + $35 = $61.66/mo. = $15.42/wk.

We shook on it. :) Gotta love negotiation.

More later,

~E.

“...an’ what’s mos’ importantly, I ain’t gotta fuck wit’ Ray-Ray’s broke ass no’ mo’...”

Here’s to being gainfully employed. Dude, one of the things about being w/out a steady job for an unHOLY and fully unacceptable period of time (temping most certainly does not count, particularly in this economy) is that even if you do not have any money of which to speak yet, you are excited simply about the upcoming check, even if the first check is only for a few days and still isn’t due for a little bit yet. You still know that it is coming. One needs no longer fuck about mit das Gub’ment for unemployment payouts weekly to obtain the barest means of covering one’s car insurance, gas, any other bill you can sort of squeeze in there and the weekly ration of ramen, frozen veggies and tuna that become creative “casseroles”. Man, it’s a relief. I remember telling someone a while ago that I really missed being able to bitch about my day at the job. Know why? Because doing so is a luxury. It usually means your job isn’t going anywhere anytime soon and you need to vent before going in for another day of work, because it will all be there again for you tomorrow. Correct me if I’m wrong, but people who are sincerely concerned about the stability of their positions don’t bitch so much. They talk about it a lot and they freak out, but all in all they’re too worried about what’s going to happen tomorrow because they don’t know what’s going to happen next. I think for the most part, people who are sincerely concerned don’t bitch. They stress, they get headaches, they obsess, they smoke and/or drink too much, all while on the lookout for a new position. People who are secure enough in their positions bitch because they know they can and still go in the next day. Random thought, there.

Yesterday I left the apt.about 7:20a to get to work. Had one HELL of a long day. Y’know the kind, just one thing after another and even if you wrote everything down that you did all day long, it still doesn’t seem to justify all the time you just spent in the office. Spent a good chunk of the day reprioritizing everyone’s “emergency” projects while calling all over the better part of the eastern seaboard in order to track down all the missing receipts I needed to process the thick stack of expense reports I wanted off my desk with a passion. Right near the end of the time I’m actually supposed to leave the office (4:30p), the president of the company comes up, tells me he needs last-minute reservations for one o/our guys to go to San Diego next week at a reasonable rate (oh, Lord) and that Duder needs an aisle seat and whatever non-stop flights might be available. (This was a difficult task.) In the end I did what I could, finally calling it quits around 9p (yup, that’s another 12hr.day, hooray for OT!), but with a lock on a decent fare, though not quite the right schedule, and only a few expense reports to tackle today. ::sighs:: Hopefully that’ll be enough to work with for the time being.

For the most part I’m getting my body used to a fairly normal sleep schedule, being about 5 to 6 hrs., depending. I usually get up somewhere between 5a & 6:30a now, depending on whether or not I can afford to sleep in a little. Last night was rough, though. Even going directly home, dropping my bags, changing into pajamas, curling up under warm blankets & watching ‘Tropic Thunder’ I couldn’t seem to get to sleep. Maddening, that. You know damned well you’ve little time left to sleep before you get up, and your mind’s obsessively workin’ the countdown every time you check the nearest timepiece re:how much more time you’ve just lost thinking about it, but you still can’t force yourself to crash out. Urgh. ::sighs again:: I finally decided to just type this entry out, have the last New Castle I’d stashed in the fridge a couple wks.ago & smoke a little before trying again. Eventually it worked, I just wish it’d worked a little earlier. Luckily I am not a surgeon of any sort, so no one shall die or become disfigured even a little on my watch today...they might just end up w/an unexplained über-order of colored Post-Its and rubber bands when next we receive supplies. :)

All right, I’m off to my previously scheduled tasks for the day, but before I finish up do me a favor at some point today, even just for a second or two. Some people reading this have jobs they really dig, some have ones they don’t love but will more than do for the time being, and some people have jobs that blow goats and make them want to drink heavily even before leaving the cube farm behind for the day. Just take a second, though, and remember that no matter how freakin’ frustrating that shit might be at any given moment, you actually *have* a job. It may not be much to speak of, and you might even curse it every day you go in, but you actually HAVE employment. The economy’s fucked, unemployment’s at an all-time high, and honestly even if you’re moppin’ up Slurpie guts and switching out that 5lb.chili bag right now you have *something*, which is one Hell of a lot more than a lot of other people have right now. Just think about that for a brief second at some point today before shoving another pin in the rubber band voodoo doll you made of your boss or co-worker last week. Could be worse.

...then shove another pin in near the head, ‘cuz that guy should *really* learn to chew with his mouth closed. I mean really.

:)

More later.

~E.

7 random things I'm thinking about at the moment...

1. I’ve mentioned this before, but I’m going to again: The Brad Sucks album has become one of my absolute favorite driving-home-late pieces of music. If I don’t hit too many lights on the drive & there’s not much traffic, it runs the perfect length o/time to drive from 509 to Vienna, walk from the car to the house, and *just* cross the threshold without skipping a single song. Sometimes this feels a little bit magical.


2. The Lifetime channel is showing Christmas movies in July. This is both ridiculous & fired. Lifetime was likely created for those who simply can’t get enough terrible daytime TV, and is really just a cross between truly awful soap operas & after-school specials for adults. For people with those kinds of needs, however, there is now a whole channel that shows outdated, poorly written shows all day long, all the time, forever. Pfft.
   
   ...having said this, I freely admit that I *still* check it regularly while channel surfing.


3. I’ve had a grand total of 5.5 hours sleep in the last 2 days. Night before last this was due to an inability to stay asleep past 3.5 hours. Last night it was my own damned fault because I stayed up @ 509, then got up early on purpose. Was invited to watch a movie back at the Reston apt.w/Katie & Nicholas last night, but I didn’t feel okay driving yet considering the alcohol & my severe lack of sleep lately. Decided to take a nap for a couple hours before going home to be on the safe side (worked like a charm), then got up at 5a, loaded my stuff into the car, & helped Maam pick up a metric fuck-ton of fireworks refuse left in the road of the cul-de-sac. It’d be way more impressive if I said something like, “Keeping the streets clean...for AMERICA!” but really it was just me in yesterday’s clothes, sweeping the street with a broom, & Maam in a nightgown with a plastic bag, putting away whatever I was able to shuffle over to the curb.
   
   After over an hour of this we decided things were good enough. She gave me a hug before I left, but both of us were so gross & sticky from being out in the hot, lightly raining weather for so long that it was sort of an “Aw!” moment, immediately followed by an, “Ew, gih!” moment as ea.o/us quickly pulling back & shared mutual, albeit amused, disgust with our yucktacular states.


4. Last night Debbie said she referenced our last 3 hr., multi-store grocery excursion & my love for all things culinary by telling someone, “E. shops for groceries like other women shop for shoes!”
   
   I thought the way she put it was pretty keen. Also it makes me sound like a little less of a complete fattie than saying something like, “Oh my God, she spends *hours* in food stores. HOURS I tell you!” ::laughs::


5. (This is a girly complaint you can totally skip if you like...) I am not friends with my ovaries right now. They are terrible, wretched little monsters that hurt me in my hurting place for no good reason. If they continue to misbehave so atrociously & wreak havoc on me in this fashion, I’m going to divorce them due to irreconcilable differences & an abusive relationship. ::looks in direction of said organs:: Did you hear that you little jerks? Keep this up & we’re going to have a very specific conversation involving a knife and an ice cream scoop. I feel kind of like I’m stuck babysitting someone else’s ill-raised, very poorly behaved toddlers, and I can’t kick them out, and I don’t know when they’re going home.


6. It is raining & dreary & beautiful outside right now. I think it’s lovely, and if it weren’t for the fact that it’s so humid and warm, I’d be out in the rain. Instead, I believe I’ll try to spend as much of the day as possible in pajamas, looking out the window on occasion, watching movies, & getting lost in other people’s fictitious lives.


7. In keeping with the tangent theme of this post, whenever you’re having a rough time of things & find yourself grasping at straws to keep your hopes up, try to remind yourself that things could likely be worse. You could be:
   
   
   • On fire.
   
   
   • Afflicted with some terrible sort of crotch-rot.
   
   
   • This guy. I mean...damn.