Curves, Continued

In an effort to be sane and pro-active, I did my best to tolerate Curves by finding and bringing in my own music. I bought it on line—possibly the world’s only workout CD (DVD? VD? PTSD?) to feature selections of classical music—none of it opera, all lyric-free. I slipped it into my purse, brought it to Curves, and begged the young Curves girl to please try it out. She said she needed the boss’s approval, and that the boss was away on a skiing vacation.

“Let’s pretend I’m the boss,” I said in my head. Outside my head I said: “Pretty please?”

“What if the other members don’t like it?”

There were, at the time, two women there. 

“Then we’ll all kill ourselves,” I said, again in my head, while outwardly swearing that if this were the case, I’d apologize to all two of them and keep my music out of Nerves ever more.

“What’d you say?” 

Oops. Calling Curves Nerves was my other attempt at making Curves doable. It had, after all, destroyed all of mine. Of course, I hadn’t meant to say Nerves aloud but when you’re in the habit of thinking one thing and saying another, this is sometimes what happens.

“What’d I say when?” I replied.

Feigned confusion plus two more minutes of the most abject of begging persuaded her to accommodate me. For the next half hour there was nary a hint of the Funkytown song, nor one tortured growl from a substitute Cher. This, plus my silent decision to trade in Nerves for the even more delicious title of Pervs, got me through the first half of the workout. I got through the second half by studying the post-its adorning one wall, each one declaring, via black marker, that Curves had helped yet one more member lose so many hideous inches.

“Sarah B. lost four inches!” bragged one.

“Laurie P. lost five pounds and fifteen inches!” boasted a superior other.

“In height!” I added to each, using the marker I keep in my head. After all, doesn’t menopause make you get shorter? Do we not, if we live long enough, Boniva and Pervs both notwithstanding, finally shrink to the size of a cell phone? 

I regarded the vandalized post-its with glee and, workout completed, flew out the door.