"The Albatross"

In Albany, where I live, there are these commercials and billboards all over the place for a place called Best Fitness. It’s a gym that's $20 a month for life. Two months ago, after I picked Kris up from work one day, we headed over to take a look.
“C’mon, it’ll take a second.”
“Ahh man, I wanted to go home and watch MaxEX” (If you haven’t seen it, your missing out on home videos of crazy things like Komodo Dragons attacking 80 year-old women in wheelchairs. It’s great.)
So, I concur. Actually, I have no choice because it’s her car…And if there was no concurrence, I would’ve had to take the bus home. And Andrew no like to take big bus home.

We arrive to Westgate Plaza, and look for Best Fitness. “Where is this place,” we ask each other, then finally we see the storefront. Some guy, watching us from inside is waving for us to come in. Kris saw him, but I could barely make him out because of the saw-dust covered glass he was standing behind. “You gotta be kidding me.” This place was under construction. Now when I say, “under construction,” you probably think I mean the place is being built. No. This place was literally under construction.

Plywood was all over the place. There wasn’t a floor. Yes, there wasn’t a floor, just rubbish and concrete. It was like it was a continuation of the parking lot, but with an open, upside down cardbox on top of it. Don’t get me wrong, it was the most promising pile of rubble I’ve ever seen in my life, but I was starting to understand why it was only $20 a month. And the best part about the gym membership, was that for only $5 more a month, you could actually help with the construction. (No hard hat is provided though. Sad face.)
The gym guy - let’s call him Joe - walks over to us and asks “So, what brought you guys to our gym?”

***Interactive Part of Story***
Pick a response:
A) Home Depot does animal testing so we wanted to buy 2 x 4’s from you guys.
B) Oh, I’m sorry the wind from the saw-dust storm blinded us, and we accidentally wandered in here. We meant to go in Pottery Barn.
C) Instead of going to Vieques to see the results of bomb testing, we decided to come to Best Fitness.
D) I’m sorry, but it sounded like you said this was a gym.
***Thanks For Your Participation***

Well, I kept my mouth shut while (input your answer here) ran though my mind. Kris said she was thinking of signing up. “OK, I’ll show you guys around.” Show us around what I thought, but decided to let him humor me. “Where all those buckets are, yea, that’s gonna be the aerobics room. And to your left, that wheelbarrow is where all the free weights are going to be. And to the right of that is where our state-of-the-art cardiovascular machines like treadmills and ellipticals are gonna be.”

Are treadmills really state-of-the-art? Is anything in a gym state-of-the-art, besides the steroid the really buff dude next to you has injected in his butt cheek?

Joe then took us downstairs to a big, empty space with three doorways. “This is a separate area for women who don’t want to workout in front of everybody. And this room is going to be for boxing.”
For the first time, jokes stopped running around in my head. “Wait, you said boxing? Is it free?”
“Yup, everything is. All our classes are free, and you get your own personal trainer for free as well.”

Now my interest has peaked because I want to try boxing. Sadly, “The Contender,” a boxing reality show on NBC, has got me hooked. It has me so hooked, that I was thinking of getting a pair of custom boxing shorts that stop right below my nipples. And you know how boxers have some cheesy insignia on their waste band. Like it’ll say, “Punisher,” “Sugar,” or have the token, athletic Bible scripture “John 3:16.” Well, I want one too. But I was thinking of something to throw my opponent off, like the name of an animal that’s thought to be weak. I’m torn between “Otter,” and “Albatross.” After a long deliberation, “Alaskan Snow Monkey,” came in a distant third.

Daydream with me, people. I can see it now.

The lights. The crowd. The score-card girls.
And the announcer, Michael Buffer (the “Let’s get ready to rumble” guy) grabbing the microphone. “The challenger, in the blue corner, born and raised in Haaarrlem, New York…but currently living in Albany because his parents decided to move to Orlando out of the blue for no real reason…Standing at a lanky 6’1 and weighing in at a light, but meaty, 169 pounds. Aaaaaandrew ‘The Albatross’ Daaaaavis.”

Now I was officially impressed with this wonderful facility. “OK, where do we sign up?”

Sitting down in the one room that actually had tiles, Joe brought us the paperwork. Kristin, who knew she was going to sign up before walking through the door, signed the papers as quick as a celebrity giving an autograph. I, on the other hand, read through each word because there has to be a catch…and I’m cheap. Ah-HAH. “So if you cancel within 2 years, you have to pay $150?”
“Yea, that’s the severance charge.”
“Ah, man, it sounded good until then. I don’t know if I‘m going to be going for 2 years. I don’t even know what I‘m doing 2 days from now.”
Then Kris chimes in, “C’mon, you’re definitely going to go if you have to pay.”
I pull aside her jacket to see if she’s wearing a Best Fitness name tag on her shirt. She always tries to sell me something. “You just want me spending money again.”
“Oh, no I don’t.”

In supermarkets: “You should buy this ToFu salad mix.”
“What? I don’t even eat ToFu.”

In clothing stores: “Don’t you need more undershirts?”
“Well, thanks for reminding me, Kristin. I am feeling kind of nippy under this goose-down jacket.”

Finally, I’m persuaded to sign up. But only because I can get my money back until 7 days after the gym opens. When is that? By the looks of it, late 2009.