Wednesday, September 22, 2010

The gym saga continues.

In my last post, I kept you breathless and spellbound as I informed you that I was thinking about joining a gym. And since I throw myself headlong into any new project or idea, there was little else I could think about until I did something about this new plan.

So I signed up for a guest pass at the Gold's Gym down the road. It was a seven day free pass and I thought, "Well, I'll take a class each day and at the end, I'll see if I want to commit!"

That's a good idea, Maegan. A nice, level-headed decision.

So at 9:30 on Monday morning, I walked into a big studio room at Gold's for a CardioSculpt class. There were about fifteen women (NO men) bouncing around the room with me, and at first I wondered if maybe the class was intended to be... fluffy.

Nope!

I worked my butt off! After forty minutes, I was dying. When is this class going to end??? When the instructor finally gave us the go-ahead to slow down and start stretching, I breathed many sighs of relief. It was a hard class! (In fact, it's Wednesday morning, and I'm STILL very sore.)

After the workout, I was pumped up and feeling healthy. On my way out, the general manager stopped me. "Wait," he said, "do you want me to show you around the gym?"

I shrugged. "Um, sure."

So while he showed me the free weight room and all the fancy equipment, I told him I was mainly interested in the classes. "Great," he said. "When we get back downstairs, I'll go over membership options with you."

"Actually, I was planning to use my week pass before deciding anything," I told him.

"That's fine, but I wanted to tell you about the two-week trial we offer on your first visit."

Not wanting to be rude, I said, "Okay." And I thought, Hmm, two weeks? That's better than one!

So at the end of the tour, we sat down at his desk and he flipped his computer around to show me the membership options. "If you want a month-to-month plan with no commitment," he said, pointing to the images on his screen, "it's a $299 enrollment fee and $49.99 per month after that."

Holy cow, I thought, and I'm sure my face showed it, because he said quickly, "But if you commit to a year, it's only a $199 enrollment fee, and $29.99 per month after that."

Um, that's still a crapload of money. But my sucker-butt was paying attention, and I was falling for the pitch.

"But," he continued, "if you sign up today, on your first visit, it'll only be $99 to enroll and you can have a free two-week trial period to cancel."

I was quiet for a minute, and he added, "Tell you what - I'll give you a month to try it out, instead of two weeks."

You want to know something? On the Gold's Gym website, there's a $0 enrollment fee offer. You want to know something else? I didn't remember that, despite having visited the website to get directions to the stupid gym.

So my dumb butt nodded like a bobblehead doll and signed myself up for a year commitment, a $99 enrollment fee, and $29.99 per month dues. An initial credit card charge of a hundred and twenty-five bucks.

"Oh, just to let you know," the manager added, "every November, there's an additional $29.99 fee for facility maintenance. But it's just once a year. And it all goes to the building and equipment."

I should have realized - There goes my "free" month.

So I walked out the door with an expensive gym membership that I wasn't even sure I wanted when I walked in.

And when I told Brian over the phone as I drove home, he was silent for a minute. Then he said, "Um, honey, I'm kind of upset with you."

TO BE CONTINUED! I've run out of time!

-Maeg

2 comments:

  1. ohhh c'mon i wanna hear what happens...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Uh oh... but it *was* your birthday yesterday so maybe this... was... part.. of... your... um... present??? :-) Have fun at the gym! Work out for me too, okay?

    ReplyDelete