Gym, not so dandy.

I just want to start out by saying that normally, I love my gym. It's $25 a month...no contracts. It's clean. There's only a very small percentage of veiny, waxed men wearing World Wrestling belts and cut off Ts grunting their way to bigger bulges...so that is a perk.

It's also close to work, so 2-3 times a week, esp. during the winter, I can go at lunch, get it over with, find out what's happening on the soaps, and still fit into my sweatpants. It's really an excellent relationship.

But, a few months ago, as I'm walking out of the gym having a heated debate in my head between Wendy's vs. McDonald's, I get talked into one of those "free" personal training sessions with the head trainer guy. So I schedule it, am duly impressed, and after the session (with zero blood in my brain and the inability to ambulate) the guy "persuades" me to spend $540 on, like, 8 sessions, which is not all that great a deal. (In case, unlike me, you're any good at math.) But he's "giving me a great deal." Jedi mind trick? I'll take it!

Okay, so after I sign the paperwork, literally with hand shaking from low blood sugar and near tears from being the biggest sucker in the world, he tells me that he can't be the one who trains me, so he'll probably hand me off to one of his other guys. Hello, Master Bait-and-Switch, didn't see you there.

I'm, truth be told, pretty annoyed to have been burned twice in one transaction. But, I decide to make the best of it, and my new guy is super cool, and even though I actually CAN still walk when I leave a session with him, and I'm not all that sure he's really watching for how I'm positioning myself when I'm doing weird exercises, he's fine.

So I run out of pre-paid sessions, and the urge to be guilt-tripped into buying more kicks in. So I ask him, today, if I can do 1/2 hour sessions instead of hour-long ones, and he's fine with it, but we have to ask Master Bait-and-Switch, the keymaster to the training deals.

Well, so, Master BS goes right into how if we're going to do this "special" favor for me, I have to order twice as many sessions and how if I sign this in-triplicate paper that says they can charge my credit card for $1000 over the next three months, then I can do it. And then he shoves it over to me.

I explain that I have to check with my purse-strap controlling husband (even though I am the tightwad who won't ever let us buy anything) and I can't just sign it all willy-nilly.

He's like, "Listen, I won't do anything. Just sign it, and then call me if you can do it, and I'll put it in."

Sure. Let me just sign this legally binding contract that says that I have to pay you a huge sum of money, and authorize you to use my credit card to do so...and I'll trust that you that you won't do anything with it.

He pulls the oldest trick in the book and puts me in the uncomfortable situation (after he's offered me this 'I'm your best friend, shhhh, sweet just-for-you deal') of having to either sign the paper or question his integrity.

So, I say that, even though I trust him (RIGHT), I can't be sure it's not going to end up in the wrong hands (HIS) and end up with $1000 coming out of my account (OOPS!).

I leave it that I'm going to go back and sign it tonight if my mean tightwad husband (ME) will let me. But, it left such a bad taste in my mouth, I'm not sure if I ever want to go back. I hate stuff like that!

Look, I'm a sucker. Fine. I'm totally willing to spend money! I'm totally willing to pay large amounts of cash for the attention of a personal trainer even though I haven't lost a single pound or had anyone look twice at my diet or fat% since the first day when I wrote the first check.

But, now I'm supposed to sign in blood for 30 training sessions? Give me a freaking break, dude. Grrr. If I all this fake weight training was working and I was a little stronger, I would break him in two.