The Aqua Fitness Procrastinator

I love the water. I’ve been swimming since I was a baby. I even became a certified scuba diver 25 years ago. In the past I’ve enjoyed deep water aqua fitness classes at the local YMCA which was the closest pool to my house.

But you know how it goes. Divorce. Sell the house. Move. Unemployment. Money is tight. No extra $$ for fitness classes.

I miss going to the pool and I took a look at the aqua fit classes offered at the city pools. There’s a city pool closer than the YMCA where I’m now living and they offer several aqua fitness classes, unfortunately mostly during the daytime when I’m working. The monthly membership is about the same as the Y. At $70/month, it’s a little steep when I’m not sure how many aqua fitness classes I’ll attend. I noticed at the closest pool to me there are three deep water aqua classes at 7:15pm on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Wednesday is a scheduling conflict to me. I probably won’t get my money’s worth every month.

And then I noticed the pool has a drop-in pass. 10 visits for $60. I started thinking about it. Hmmm.

I received a $75 Visa gift card at Christmas.

I decided I could buy a 10-visit pass and see how I like this new pool. To clarify, the pool’s not new, just new to me. It was built about 15 years ago.

My next obstacle is I can’t find my padlock and the plastic spiral key wristband for my locker in the changing room. I can buy another. Not easy. I looked everywhere for the wristband, and after a month of looking, finally found a package of 3 at a dollar store. I gave one wristband away to a friend who’s recently started going to a gym. I now had my wristband, lock, and key and finally went to the pool and used that Visa gift card to buy the 10-pass – a plastic card where the visits are electronically stored. I swipe at a gate like I’m a train station.

Now here’s where it gets interesting. The young lady is typing my information into the computer, and then she asks if she can double check my address and reels off a street. I told her I’ve never lived there, and then my memory is jogged.

Remember when I got a job offer from the City of Surrey that I figured was meant for a woman with the same name as me?

I ask the clerk if that Cheryl has an email address on the account, and she said yes. I asked her if it was her name at a gmail address, and again she said yes.

I then told her about the job offer I got from the City of Surrey when I hadn’t applied for a job and wasn’t looking for a job, and she said it looks like there’s more of you out there with the same name.

I wonder if my namesake ever found a job!

I wonder if I’ll ever run into her at the pool!

The next night I attended my first deep water fitness class.

I’m not sure how I like this pool. The first thing that happened in the changing rooms is that none of the lockers are the kind that you put your own padlock on. You put two quarters in and it releases a key that you pin onto your swimsuit.

Well that sucks! I left my wallet at home. I have no change. What am I going to do? I almost considered leaving. Then I decided I’d just put my clothes into my backpack and take it out to the pool area with me. I noticed other people were doing that.

On the pool deck I noticed there were some small lockers that people can lock using their own padlocks for day use only. Perfect! I stuffed my things in there and decided to swim a couple of laps before heading over to the pool for the deep-water fitness. I noticed in the section where the class is held there are some benches and others in the class were leaving their bags here, so I’ll do that next time.

It turns out I didn’t need to spend all that time looking for a plastic spiral wristband!

Who else out there is a fitness procrastinator?