The trendy, low-lit, hornier-than-Tinder gym I’m currently a “member” of has a very clever policy. If you want to quit, you need to come down and break up with them face-to-face.
This is cunning for two reasons: firstly, they want me to haul my fat arse down there so they can give me a motivational talking to and say things about meal plans and Hot Zumba and Jazz Aerobics and HRT class or whatever.
Secondly they know I’m highly unlikely to do the 20 minute walk down there just to tell them I won’t be coming any more.
Because this situation is currently costing me €59 per month, I’m quite eager to resolve it by either quitting or using the gym. The problem is that, for the following very real reasons, I haven’t been able to make it. Tonight isn’t looking good either:
1. I washed my hair this morning and managed to dry it in a way that makes me resemble a normal, functioning adult woman. Exercise will almost certainly undo this achievement.
2. My headphones are tangled up in my pocket again and I can only solve that bloody ever-recurring Groundhog Day conundrum once in any 24-hour period before I mash them up and hurl them at a passing lorry.
3. By the time I finish work it’s dark outside. Going outside after dark could be detrimental to my personal safety. Unless I’m going to the cinema or to the shop for Minstrels. In my defence, those are both locations that are brightly lit and very secure.
4. Today’s studio class is spinning and spinning is the work of the devil himself.
5. This flapjack I’m eating right now contains 400 calories. That’s gonna take at least one hour of running on the treadmill to burn off, which basically leaves me back where I was before I started eating this delicious flapjack. This seems like a pointless exercise in time travel for very little reward. At this stage even the flapjack is gone.
6. I have a dull pain in my knee. That usually means it’s about to start raining or a huge celebrity is about to die. That’s two reasons right there. Halfway to the gym I could be struck down (in the rain) by a very serious sore knee emergency – all while Twitter is positively alight with #RIP tributes to a darling of the stage and screen.
7. Himself isn’t going to the gym either. If his metabolism ever catches up with him I just always need to make sure I never gain more weight than he does. That way I’ll always look slimmer in photographs.
8. I already have a man. We’re already married and in negative equity. He’s already trapped.
9. Wine.
10. The dog needs walking. Even though sometimes Teddy and I both decide together that we’d rather skip the walking. Then we decide to share a packet of HobNobs on the sofa instead. Those are full of oats, which actually lower your cholesterol. I lick the chocolate off Teddy’s ones. Chocolate is terrible for dogs, you know.
