How I Lost My Gym Membership, Lost Weight, and Gained a Bowel Problem - A saga in three parts - Part 1

I have been exercising regularly for the last two and a half years.  Prior to that, I had an extreme aversion to unnecessary physical activity.  However, eight months out of college, with a desk job and a slowing metabolism, I discovered that I also had an extreme aversion to being disgusting in unnecessary ways.


So I joined an expensive gym with all kinds of fancy fitness classes.  I attended exactly one yoga class.  It might have been better if I hadn't been the only person under the age of 60.  Something about the combination of liver spots and contortionism just rubbed me the wrong way.  Realizing I was paying exorbitant fees just to use a treadmill and a few machines, I quit.


I joined a cheaper gym, which, based on its "retro" gimmick and red-and-yellow color scheme, was little more than a McDonald's Playplace for juicehead adults (This was still New Jersey).  Nevertheless, it was cheap and met my needs.  Fast forward about a year, and I have moved from New Jersey to Idaho.  My husband is a grad student, so I was able to get the special "student spouse rate" at the University's gym.  This rate is only special in the sense that it is the only thing I have encountered that costs more in Idaho than it did in New Jersey.

[Tangent]  I quickly discovered that this gym has some value-added features beyond fitness classes, a rock wall, and a sauna - the local m4m craigslist personals revealed the fabulous truth that the group showers in the men's locker room are a prime cruising location...along with the arboretum, apparently.  On an only slightly related note, my husband was perusing the local m4m's a few months ago (should I be concerned?) when he stumbled upon an invitation for discrete casual sex accompanied by an exquisitely photoshopped dismembered penis on a piece of toast.  This town does not disappoint, guys.  [End of Tangent]

I digress.  I gladly shelled out the exorbitant 30-day membership fee.  It was the day after my birthday, and I had a job interview the next day.  I had my whole life ahead of me, and goddamn, it was going to be good.  Better yet, I was going to use the shit out of this gym membership, and become ridiculously hot.  Clearly, rejection wasn't even a remote possibility, because I was determined to kick the asses of both life AND that job interview.  


And I did.  I kicked approximately nine hours of ass.  NINE HOURS.  Anyone who can withstand the social pressures of having to be unrealistically cordial to everyone and refrain from making even one single dick joke for NINE CONSECUTIVE HOURS should clearly be paid for their efforts, and rewarded with a steady paycheck.  


Unfortunately, someone else did a better job of remaining cordial and giving intelligent answers to insulting hypothetical questions.  Or maybe they took a gamble and realized the search committee liked dick jokes?  I should have taken a chance, but I'm so risk averse, it's really been a limiting factor in my life.


So, several agonizingly suspenseful weeks later, I lay on the floor clutching the mail to my chest, a broken woman.  I thought about urinating on the rejection letter, but our plumbing is temperamental, so there was my risk aversion, ruining my life again by stifling my ability to act out.  But if you've ever had to mop up ankle-deep sewage from someone else's burrito abortion, you'd be risk averse about that, too.


There I was, getting poorer by the second, and the clock was ticking on my 30-day gym membership.  This gym membership represented the last time I spent money on something that wasn't directly related to keeping me alive, out of jail, or not homeless.  You can use your imagination about the jail part, because it's not really glamorous and actually just involved making sure my car was properly licensed and insured.  I guess I didn't leave you much to imagine, unless you want to picture me driving drunk with a dead hooker in the passenger seat so I could use the carpool lane, but not in Idaho because I'm pretty sure they don't have them in Idaho.  Carpool lanes, not hookers.


Anyway, the gym membership was so special to me.  I couldn't imagine living without it.  What was I going to do when I had no place to go to read Cosmo and pretend to ride the stationary bike?  How would I fill my meaningless hours if I couldn't walk on the treadmill and watch The Hills?  Who would stare at the disheveled, emaciated Indian man who wears mittens to the gym and just stands in the corner staring at nothing?


I had to face the facts though.  I was running out of money.  It was a genuine catch-22.  I had to choose between renewing my gym membership and buying food.  If I paid for the gym, I wouldn't be able to eat, and thus wouldn't need to exercise.  But if I paid for the food, I would...have...food to eat?  Okay, so it really wasn't that complicated of a choice.  I had to eat, or, more importantly, I had to buy food that would be eaten mostly by my husband, who can eat with a clean conscience because 1) he's a guy and 2) his gym membership is free.


So my gym membership expired, and I had to start running outside in an environment that was neither climate-controlled nor close to places where it is appropriate or socially acceptable to go to the bathroom.    And that, friends, is where our story will resume.  Tomorrow, probably.  Unless I suddenly have more important things to do, like watch my cat lick the carpet.*


*No, this time that isn't a euphemism.