YOU CAN GET YOURSELF CLEAN

It's fun to stay at the Y.M.C.A.

It's fun to stay at the Y.M.C.A.

You can get yourself clean

You can have a good meal

You can do whatever you feel....

"YMCA" The Village People

It's the end of an era.

I shook off some dust, this morning, and went to the local YMCA to play some basketball, something I have been doing off and on since 1992. The problem has been, though, that lately I have been doing that less and less. Blame it on assorted injuries, blame it on a burdgeoning Internet addiction, blame it on laziness...whatever makes you shine. The point is that I have been to the YMCA approximately six or seven or eight times since the beginning of this calendar year. That is not getting the most out of my membership, you know?

Taking into account the fact that I have $52.00 drafted out of my checking account every month to maintain the privilege of "getting myself clean" and "doing whatever I feel," it makes absolutely no fiscal sense to keep the membership up and running. None. Use it or lose it?

I threw it away.

Let's do the math, though, just for shits and giggles: $52.00/month times 5 months (thus far) equals $260.00. Let's break that down even further, shall we? Seeing as how I have gone, let's say, eight times this year, that would mean that I have, for all intents and purposes, spent $32.50 each time I have gone. And, seeing as how I generally only spend about an hour when I do go, that would mean that I was spending around five or six dollars for every ten minutes. Shit, I could get a sensual full-body massage for that kind of money!

Late last year, I was having financial difficulties (among other troubles) and so I went to the Y and had them cease the automatic draft for a few months. I also had to go to my bank to alert them to the situation. There was a snafu later on in which my bank had stopped payment on a $52.00 check that I had written--somehow mixing the automatic bank draft with the unsequential check--and so I had gone to the bank and, with vitriolic hmm-hah given them the what-for. Apparently that had thrown a monkey wrench into the whole YMCA money-gathering, so, when I went today, it was as if I was not a member. In fact, they had absolutely no record of me; it is as if I had never existed. I said, fine, that I had been leaning towards terminating it anyway.

So, now, I am YMCA-less. But shed not a tear for me. I'm fine with it. It was too damned expensive, anyway. But, there are some good memories that I have from my 15-plus years as a member:

Like the time I was playing basketball and I went up and got a defensive rebound and came down and, going between my legs to avoid a defender, pushed it up the court and, spinning to avoid another defender, saw a teammate streaking down the right side of the court and, at half-court, tossed up a perfect alley-oop pass to the teammate, one which he caught in mid-leap, right in stride, and laid it up and in with a delicate finger-roll.

Like meeting good people and making fast friends, some of the friendships lasting to this day.

Like toning and buffing my body, hitting the weights, filling myself with pride and a sense of accomplishment.

I've had a good run at the YMCA. The math just doesn't add up, though. It is far too fucking expensive, even if I went three or four times a week. I'm just not going to pay over $600.00 a year to work out. It just ain't gonna happen.

I'll just have to find another way to get myself clean. That's it.