I guess I don’t really have to write anything here about my gym blunder . . . I could just let the title speak for itself. But anyway, I’m wordy, so I’ll go ahead. 🙂
There I was, on October 13, really proud of myself. My insurance pays–fully pays–for gym memberships . . only, uh, I’ve never taken advantage of it. But this year, I was bound and determined. Ok, not really, but after fitness was brought to my attention several times, I decided to go for the free membership. I mean, free membership. Free. Like, free pumpkin pie. Only, kinda the opposite.
After missing the one blood work/weight check/height check/blood pressure check opportunity in September because I waited to schedule my appointment until the Friday before the Monday date . . well, anyway, after missing that opportunity, I got another in October, even though I arrived 20 or 30 minutes late after having gotten lost and winding up asking total strangers on a pitch black Monday morning where in the world the Heart Institute was I was supposed to go to.
That was October 2. Then I had to take an online survey, and I couldn’t get my sign-up to work. Then I didn’t do anything for several days. Then I went back in and found out my sign-up actually had worked even though it had never finished loading with me, and I was able to take the online survey.
With the health check-up and online survey complete, I could proudly now sign up for free gym membership. Well, not exactly free. I had to pay in advance. I paid for a full year. I paid a lot of money.
So, somehow, October 2 got to be October 13 by the time I went to sign up.
October 17, I decided to call the Health & Wellness department at our work. I asked something like the following question: “I know I have to go 12 times a month to get my fitness membership free. But do I have to go 12 times between October 13 and November 13 or 12 times between October 13 and October 31?”
I really wasn’t ready to hear the answer to that.
(The 12 times have to be on 12 separate days. For some reason, the insurance company made a rule about that.)
Fortunately, very fortunately, the gym I signed up at is open Saturdays and Sundays.
So, from October 17 (the first day I attended) to October 31, my plan is to go every single absolutely every day, and maybe get the last Sunday off. If I do not go every single day, and I wind up going only, say, 11 times instead of 12, I have to pay 50% of my gym membership.
I am VERY motivated to go 12 times.
Then I found out that the health check-up I did only lasts until December. In December, to keep my coverage going through January, guess what I have to do?
Another blood work/weight check/height check/blood pressure check.
If I don’t, I get to pay for the rest of my gym membership–that is January through September–all by myself.
Call me patient of the year, because I absolutely, positively intend on getting up at another pitch black hour to go to wherever the next health check-up will be. I’m really hoping this one’s at my work, and I think it will be. But even if I have to knock on the door of a random medical building and beg for directions again, I’ll do it.
And until November 1, you can find me, the night owl, cycling on a stationary bike every weekday morning sometime before 6:30 at my new home away from home, my pal the gymnasium.
I am so glad I did not get my membership on October 31.
All hard work brings a profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty. (Proverbs 14:23, NIV)
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