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.
