Why even
sliding-scale membership isn’t worth the trip to the
gym.
This friday is
payday, and more important than the $400 I’ll get for
the two weeks I spent stacking cans of gluten-free cat
food is the fact that I’ll receive my third
consecutive pay stub. I need it to prove to the San
Francisco YMCA that I don’t make enough money to pay
full price for a membership, which I want because at
the San Francisco Y you can check your e-mail while
riding a stationary bicycle or watch a Forensic Files
marathon while on the treadmill. Exercise was never
easier!
Since becoming an
alleged adult I’ve always felt like I should exercise
-- or should at least want to exercise -- and make a feeble
attempt at health, thus staving off terrible things
like the coronary heart disease and high cholesterol
described to me in 1980s margarine commercials. But
the truth is that I find nothing so soul-crushing as
spending my Slurpee and hot dog money on preventive
health measures.
I’ve
probably had nine different rarely used Y memberships in my
adult life. My pattern is: Sign up, pay the enrollment
fee, buy a new sports bra, go one or two times,
guiltily watch the monthly fee deducted automatically
from my bank account, get depressed, and cancel my
membership under the pretense that I can use the money
toward sliding-scale psychotherapy.
When I lived in
Providence, R.I., my friend Lamby and I managed to
finagle a $3-a-month membership at the saddest YMCA ever.
Three dollars for both of us. The family plan
enabled us to ride 1970s stationary bicycles in a room
the size of a broom closet. When I see a room full of
people pedaling away on stationary bikes, I fall into
an existential spiral. It’s confirmation that all we
do as humans is pedal, pedal, pedal, and go nowhere.
We’re just specks of dust in the universe,
riding 1970s stationary bicycles. Every wall in that broom
closet was covered with signs asking members to wipe off the
bikes when they were done using them. The few times I
actually rode one, I got up afterward and looked
hopefully for sweat to clean off the seat, but there
was none. Still, I diligently wiped the seats and handlebars
like a beleaguered housewife in a play, scrubbing,
scrubbing -- my work never done.
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