Thursday, May 24, 2012
CLOSE CALL
Johny, the guy at the gym, asked if I had a new id number because it showed me "inactive" this morning.
Look, given my new accelerated bike program (full half hour at the machine's max effort) I am anything but inactive. So I freaked when I realized that I had not paid up on the 7th of May due date.
Why is this important?
Because when John and I moved to Palm Springs, the Golds, then a franchise, was in trouble. They had overbuilt the facility and there was a bad economy again. We look back to bad economies in the way that people look back at a city they are leaving. There are so many that looking into the future is just a mote in the sun.
Anyway, we went to a movie and there was an ad for Golds, we had been going someplace else. They were offering a lifetime membership for 99 dollars a year. All you had to do was buy two years NOW.
I had been going to Golds for quite a while before we moved here. All the way back to the old location out in the desert. In a Mall.
So we went and joined up.
Today the annual membership costs about 450 dollars. Bang!
So I went out today in person to re-up and hope I wouldn't have lost my privileged fee.
As it turns out I have thirty days after the expire date.
Then the high fee kicks in. Over the years it involves a lot of money.
My surprise was over the fact that I missed the date.
Because of the money advantage and the belief on the part of the dwindling number of people who have the 99 deal and the paranoia we have about the gym being out to take it away from us on a technicality, I have worried my way along with it.
Always on my calendar. Why not this time?
Shit. Maybe it is because I am feebing out. But then, the woman who took me in told me she was shocked to see my birth date, I look so good.
Ahhhhh.
