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Thursday, June 09, 2005


fisical fitness follies 

So I finally limped my ass up to Roswell to sign up at Curves.

What? Didn't I do that on tuesday?

no.

I hadn't gotten very far when Kev called, and I told him where I was headed.
I was going to try to stop by after work. Perky lady was ALL ABOUT THAT. "Oh yes! Please do!" Never once saying "so I'll put you down for 6?"

So a quick call later, and I have an appointment for thursday at 6:45.

Right.

I fight the traffic, and make only one wrong turn (this is good for me). And I get there early! A very nice woman who sounds exactly like Rose, Betty White's character from the Golden Girls.

We go through a quick questionaire, where I tell her how I learned about Curves (ummm...every strip mall in Atlanta?) w at I hope to accomplish (lose weight, gain self-esteem), etc, etc.

Then comes the humiliating bit where I'm weighed, measured, and body fat index calculated buy a little handheld doohicky. No, I'm NOT going into details, but let's just say that if I were a delicious food item, I'd probably be an Otis Spunkmeyer's Chocolate Chocolate-Chip Muffin.

Now comes a quick tour around the room - there's 15 machines and 15 'rest pads' for inbetween machines. You use the machine, then when the music tells you, you move to a rest pad, and sort of dance/walk in place to the music. Then you move to the next machine. 30 seconds - not much time! You do the whole circuit twice in a half hour. every 8 minutes, everyone stops and measures their heart rate. But the process must work. Along the back wall were paper printouts reading "10 pounds" "20 pounds" "4o pounds," with many many smaller shape cutouts bearing a name and some numbers - weight and inches lost - arranged around them.

Then we get around to the nitty gritty: money. I tell her that my boyfriend's company (let's call it the DumbAss Company, or DAC, for reasons that will become clear) has a cooperate account. Rose goes back to the front desk to figure out exactly how much the discount is. Time passes. She's on the phone. She hangs up, dials another number...keeps giving me the one finger "just another minute" gesture. Finally, she comes back. Rose can't get ahold of anyone at DAC. But they can find out and let me know maybe tomorrow? Fine. I start filling out health forms. Then Rose's boss shows up, and Rose explains the problem.

Boss lady clears things up: the reason Rose can't find the correct person to talk to about DAC's account, is that DAC's account with Curves expired and was never renewed.

WHAT????

Obviously, employees at DAC are still under the impression that they can get discounts at Curves...has no one noticed that it is no longer happening? Kev got his membership to Gold's Gym without issue, so obviously THAT account is still good.

Goddammit.

Seeing my dismay, boss lady makes an offer. The normal sign up fee is $150, plus $29 monthly. There's a special that cuts the fee to $75...and then ANOTHER special that says if you and a friend sign up, you split the $75. She offers me the special price: $37. plus the $29 monthly dues.

So I take it. They happily take my credit card....and...their computer goes down.

This is just so not meant to be.

That's OK, they'll put it through Friday. So after all is said and done, what was supposed to be a half hour appointment took a full hour. They told me I was the most patient person in the world. It's a good thing Kev wasn't there with me. He would have totally flipped out.

I call him afterwards, and he is pissed. He's going to find out exactly what's going on. Meanwhile, I still have to make the hike to Roswell for the next month before I can change my membership...and the only reason I had to do Roswell in the FIRST place was the coorperate account. But I doubt any of the closer Curves would make me such a generous offer.

I start monday. And it will be worth it. I need to lose...LOTS of inches. And muffins.

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