DON'T RUSH ME

I love a good bargain. But I’m not sure how I feel about saving three bucks yesterday. 

 

As it turns out, some of my father rubbed off on me. He probably wouldn’t believe it. As a kid, I hated how thrifty he was. He worked his whole life as a doctor and, from a very young age, I knew we were privileged. We had a pool in the back yard, a ski boat at our cottage and we travelled from Ontario to Florida for two weeks every March. Still, my father would go out of his way to find restaurants where kids ate for free. We’d eat at Howard Johnson’s on Wednesday nights because they had all-you-can-eat clams. (Nothing made Dad prouder than when we’d ask for more.) He insisted on being in charge of grocery shopping and, on his rare days off, he’d spend half the day driving around town, hitting five grocery stores, stocking up on what was for sale at each place. 

 

During my teens, my mother would take my siblings and me clothes shopping and the sale racks were always the first stop. To my parents’ frustration, I’d turn my nose up at anything marked down. I figured if the price had to be slashed in order to get the item out of the store, there had to be something wrong with it. Why would I try on things that people didn’t want? To this day, I can’t stomach going to factory outlet malls. I still contend things marked down in a Tommy Hilfiger outlet store were never ever on a rack in a regular store and were never ever offered for the “original” sticker price. I’ve had friends and exes, however, who’ve gone bug-eyed shopping in outlets, holding up a hideous sweatshirt in clashing colours, exclaiming, “Look! It’s 70% off!” 

 

Suckers, I say.

 

Still, I can be stingy with my money. I walk extra blocks to avoid meter parking. I know where to find the cheapest gas in town. Much of what winds up in my grocery basket is on sale and, yes, I stock up when that is the case. I know the prices of most things I regularly buy and I often do without particular food purchases until the items are on sale. Except when it comes to clothes, saving money brings satisfaction. 

 

So when I showed up to do a gym workout at the recreation centre in Evan’s new town, I expected to pay ten dollars. As a compulsive gym goer even when I travel, I know ten bucks is a decent price in terms of drop-in fees. (I’ve paid as much as thirty for a day pass in places like New York City and Toronto. Fifteen to twenty seems to be the going rate.) When I stepped up to the counter at the entrance, the young person I presumed to be a high school student working a summer job told me the fee was seven dollars. 

 

Huh. I was pretty sure I’d seen the rate posted as ten dollars when I went to the website. Maybe it was her first day and she was confused. Maybe I was the one mistaken, confusing the pool drop-in fee for the gym fee. Whatever the case, I tapped my card, smiled and proceeded to the gym floor. I was happy but still cognizant of the fact that, before Evan’s move from Denver last week, I went to the gym for free since his old apartment building had a spacious, well-equipped facility. Was I saving three bucks or was I seven out of pocket?  

 

Working out at any gym for the first time goes slower than normal. I have to navigate the space. What leg machines to they have? Where are the dumbbells? Are weights stated in pounds or kilograms? Why don’t they have a fly machine? I’m also not used to the people presently working out. I watch them more, picking up on the gym etiquette, trying to stay out of the way of the regulars who no doubt don’t want their routines interrupted as I search in vain for the second fifty-pound dumbbell. 

 

All this meant my mind was plenty distracted while I worked out until I was finished with the weights and sitting on an exercise bike. As I pedalled, I thought more about my seven-dollar entry fee. I felt sure I hadn’t been mistaken about seeing the rate as ten dollars online. Did they run a special on Mondays? Did the young worker just feel like making her own rules? After all, my greeting had been friendlier than usual. Perhaps I’d been rewarded for my kindness. 

 

And then an awful thought hit me. Maybe I had been given a special rate, but not on account of it being Monday. What if they had a discount rate for seniors and she’d taken one look at me and decided I was an oldster? No ID check, no questions asked at all. What if she’d concluded I was obviously over sixty-five?!

 

Half an hour before going to the gym, I’d gotten a long overdue haircut. Later in the day when Evan came home, he immediately said, “The cut takes ten years off you.” So basically, even after a possibly younger looking haircut, I still looked 65+. 

 

Yes, I will admit that I have serious issues about growing older. I won’t be one of those people resorting to Botox and plastic surgery simply because I’m squeamish about anything medical. I have a history of fainting. I avoid knives and needles at all costs. So basically I have to rely on a very unscientific finger crossing and hope I will look young for my age.

 

I recognize that, to a seventeen-year-old summer employee, everyone over forty looks old. And, as someone who is sixty-one, I must look really old. Quite possibly, ahem, sixty-five. 

 

Still, I drove into town first thing this morning and bought blond mustache and beard dye to mask my white facial hair for the next five days or so. I am vain enough to be okay with dyes…no knife nor needle involved.

 

Even better, the dye was on sale. My father wouldn’t understand the whole hair colouring business—a totally unnecessary expense—but I’d like to think he’d be proud I didn’t get duped into paying full price. Let there be some value in that.

 

Before lunch, I opened the dye kit and generously brushed the goop into my beard, mustache and sideburns. I showered to rinse it out while washing my hair with Go Blonder conditioner. After a light lunch—low-fat yogurt and granola—I headed to the gym. Behind the counter sat a guy in his early twenties. When I told him I wanted to pay for a gym drop-in, he said, “Ten dollars” and pressed a few buttons so I could make payment with my credit card. Three extra dollars today, a forty-three percent increase. I smiled broadly after tapping the machine. Sometimes a bargain is just not worth it.

 

 

 

  

GOLD DIGGING

I’ve been working out for almost three decades. I’ve belonged to nine gyms and dropped in to countless others. But I’ve never gone to Gold’s.

It’s not my kind of place. I’m muscle-lite and they’re muscle-max. We don’t mix. That’s why they have their very own gym. Keep the scrawny dudes out.

But I’m out of sorts. Vacations will do that, mostly in good ways. (Yep, I have no idea what day of the week it is.) The problem is that I have to work off my holiday donut fat—please don’t tell me you can get them all year—and my feet are blistered out from a string of jogging days. So I needed to find a gym.

Gold’s was a three-block walk away. Convenient. But convenience is for when you need a Slurpee. (I’m trying to tell myself I never need a Slurpee.) A gym requires more thought. It’s where I’m vulnerable. Exposed chicken legs. Bad form lifting (sorta) heavy objects. Endless stream of sweat dotting my t-shirt. If I get noticed at the gym, it’s for all the wrong reasons.

I wasn't feeling the Gold's rush.

I Googled “Venice gyms” and that damn Gold’s popped up again, along with a handful of yoga places. My official line is that yoga isn’t real exercise. In truth, I can’t do it. I was the kid who always bent his knees when having to touch his toes in kindergarten. I can’t even keep my balance doing the Hokey-Pokey.

Definitely no yoga.

So I found L.A. Urban Fitness and located it on Google Maps. Close enough. But then their website revealed it was only a store for vitamin supplements and protein powders. And downing two gallons of chocolate-banana protein smoothies won’t even begin to cure my donut gut. Even if I vomit the chalky concoction.

So I had no choice. I’d be the fool at Gold’s. I mentally rehearsed my entrance as I left the hotel. 

    Go forth with confidence. You have every right to do your workout. 

    Just say no to steroids. 

    You will never see these people again.

I remained composed, even as I saw a cluster of motorcycles near the entrance. Harleys? (Is there another brand?) Gang members? Would they swarm me inside and taunt me with some aggressive bicep flexing? Okay, so I dwindled to semi-composed. I blame my parents. They instilled a fear of motorcycles and people with tattoos. (My father was an ER doctor. He’d often come home from work, sit down for dinner and gravely say, “I never want to see any of you on a motorcycle.” Maybe he’d seen dead people. Maybe he just didn’t like the noise on the commute. My mother was more concerned about ink infections and bad grooming. “Those beards! Oh, if I could just take my scissors to them.”)

I forked over my $25 drop-in fee. (That’s got to be about $400 Canadian.) My parents also taught me to get good value for my money. Now I couldn’t leave.

I immediately went to the cables. No one was on them. A coup, I thought. They’re always busy at my gym. But then I glanced around between sets. And it dawned on me. These guys don’t do cables. Free weights only, man. A few sets in, someone joined in at the lat pulldown cable beside me. A woman. With biceps twice as big as mine.

Three decades at gyms. You can do this.

I’d expected a rock ‘n’ roll soundtrack. Jimi Hendrix. Metallica. That guy that eats bat heads. But perhaps I was confusing steroid gyms with small town facilities. It was hard to hear the music but rap seemed to predominate. Angry. Motivational?

Sit down and shut up.

I don’t give a f*ck about nothin’.

This is me crushin’.

Shut up. Shut up.

When I finished my cable work, I couldn’t find the 65-pound barbell to do curls. Searched and searched. And then another epiphany. They don’t stock 5s. What’s the point? Increase by 10 every time. Like the big boys. (I stuck with 60. This was not the place where I wanted to scream in pain over a muscle cramp.)

Last time I worked out in Los Angeles, it was at L.A. Fitness. They had palm trees painted on a wall. The subliminal message: If you exercise hard enough, you may be able to go to the beach and shed your turtleneck. But Gold’s doesn’t mess with subtleties. The walls were covered with photos of Speedo-clad Mr. USAs or Mr. Worlds. I may never wear a swimsuit again.

I tried not to stare at people. But I had no wifi on my phone as I didn’t want to pay international roaming charges. (Again, my parents taught me to get good value for my money. I couldn’t justify any urgency to reading about Trump’s latest tweets.) Glancing at Mr. Worlds had caused enough damage and it got boring staring at the time on my phone so I turned people watching into a little game. Like counting blue cars or state license plates, I tried to entertain myself by searching for someone scrawnier or flabbier than me. It was tougher than the New York Times Saturday crossword, but it prompted me to wander into other rooms at the gym. And I dared to look closely at a couple of muscle men. One short, stocky guy’s bald head showed off a maze of protruding veins. I wondered what a Venice fortune teller might read into his noggin. You have a long love line. But I see lots of turbulence. I mistook another bald man as wearing a blue-gray swim cap. And then I realized it was a mass coating of ink. It fascinated me. Only a square area that included his eyes, nose and mouth was tat-free. Where did he work? Does he go through extra screening at airports? What does his mother think? 

These wonderings helped pass time between sets. I grew more comfortable. I gave up the need to find someone scrawnier. I even said, “Excuse me” to a guy leaning on the leg press machine I wanted to use instead of meekly deciding to skip legs for the day. I watched as many guys worked out with a partner and yakked too long between sets. Just like at my gym. I noticed one workout buddy videotaping the other. Okay, not like my gym.

I realized these guys were possibly as messed up as I am, spending way too much time exercising. They just had more to show for it. I don’t ever want the kind of bulk where I can only fit my legs in pajama bottoms and sweatpants—not that that’s even in the realm of possibility—but I had to give a nod to the dedication of these men. They had their own goals and I’d say they were meeting them. I’m sure that some of them will never be satisfied, always comparing their bodies to someone “better,” always being hyper-focused on slightly asymmetrical calf muscles or a millimeter of flab on the big toe, but much as I like to be dismissive, they weren’t born with six-pack (twelve-pack?) abs and biceps bigger than my thighs. They achieved something.

And so did I. I spent ninety minutes in a gym with several dozen men I’d never be able to look in the eye. And I left being slightly less defensive, a tad less judgmental and a trace more connected.

I didn’t firm up my pecs or trim my tummy, but I maybe I got something more out of my Gold-en opportunity.