When Machines Go Bad

My sister and I have joined the gym - a new gym - not the old one which was crazily expensive - we have upgraded ourselves to the council gym (counterintuitive as it may seem, the council gym is bigger, has more machines, friendlier staff and a swimming pool, which was totally missing from the last gym - and all for £19 a month less - woo woo).

Anyway, our first trip to it, we were there for an hour. Pretty good, eh? Ten minutes were spent looking around, ten being convinced we should join right there and then on the spot, five minutes filling in forms to join, five going to the loo, five finding a locker and stashing our stuff, ten minutes on the cross trainer, ten on the bike and the final five minutes trying to find our locker again. We didn't realise when we took the key that it didn't have the number written on it...

We actually spent another five minutes in there that I almost forgot about. They have one of those machines you step on, it tells you how hefty you are, what a giant you are and exactly what percentage of your body is pure solid lard.

We decided (and I'm not sure how we reached this decision) that it would be a great idea to step on and assess our own vital statistics. When we got to the machine, there was some other lass hanging out around it - so I suggsted to my sister we pretend we're chosing chocolate bars instead - as both machines are next to each other - I can't imagine that chocolate machine does much business - who's big idea what that??

Better, I think you'll agree, to be seen buying chocolate at the gym than to be weighing oneself. Anyway - sister rejected the chocolate idea and insisted we plough on and create ourselves a little bit of living hell on the weight/height/fat machine.

So I got on and held on tight when instructed - expecting the worst, only to find that when I got off and the machine spat out my little ticket, that there seemed to have been some mistake. The machine was telling me that my body fat content is of an excellent standard and that my BMI is just fine thank you very much.

I didn't hang around to report that there was a machine malfunction either - I swanned passed reception, clutching said ticket in sweaty little paws, to wave it about in the face of anyone and everyone, professing my own excellent standard of weightlessness.

God I love it when machines go bad.