Trials and Trevails

Today has been just the average Saturday afternoon. Sarah and Rachel and I watching Friends reruns, procrastinating on homework and not having quite enough umph in us to do be more dilligent, when Rachel points out that none of us have blogged in quite some time. Rachel, being the one to realize this, is of course the first to finish hers. Which left Sarah and I fighting over which one of us would get to blog about our experiences 86 year old women stuck in 20-something bodies...sadly, Sarah beat me in the race to our computers. (How rude, right?)

No worries, though, because shortly after feeling a bit sorry for myself that I lost the race, I realized I had an equally good blogging topic: The Gym.

For Christmas, my Mom told me that she would buy me a gym membership of my choice, and as a result, this week I happily joined the ranks of the millions of Americans who flock to the gym each week in an attempt to be strong, fit, healthy, and above all attractive. Of course the whole attractive part doesn't really kick in until after you leave the gym. I don't actually know of any woman who has become lovesick after seeing a red faced man in grey sweats with sweat spots that stretch from their neck all the way to their belly button....but that's beside the point.

As I was driving to the gym this morning for my first workout, the Friends episode where Chandler tries to quit the gym was playing in the back of my mind. (The One with the Ballroom Dancing in season 4) "I wanna quit the gym!" Chandler chants over and over as the gym staff continue to use their special "phrases and peppiness to try to confuse" him. I began to wonder if that's how every conversation with a gym staff member goes.

Not long after I walked through the front door, I found out that every conversation does indeed go that way. Rachel and I had practiced the night before being assertive so that when I went in for the complimentary training session, I could have them do things exactly as I want, rather than be forced to follow their preset game plan. All I wanted them to do for me was show me how to use each of the different weights so I wouldn't look like an idiot trying to do leg reps on a machine meant for biceps.
However, I apparently didn't practice enough because I only managed to get out my first protest, before they had me convinced that I needed to be a triathalon runner in the 2012 London olympics.

After the workout session, he sat me down and tried to sell me a personal trainer for 50 bucks a session plus 150 deposit fee. I just looked at him in absolute amazement as I began to realize that this was the only reason they offer a free personal training session in the first place. All I could say was "I'm a college student....do you really think that I can afford that? If I could afford that, I wouldn't have had to have my my mom pay for my membership here."

I left the gym in absolute frustration, realizing that he only showed me how to use of the machines (one of which I will NEVER use again) and with a pretty sure feeling that I would not have the ability to walk the next morning as a result of the rigorous workout session I was dragged through.

Never you fear, though because I have learned a very valuable lesson from all of this. From now on, whenever I go to the gym I will have my headphones in and my music up before I even walk through the door, and I will master the art of avoiding ALL eye contact.