Shit socks

Things my gym has tricked me into:

1. Being a member. It started with a free month from a great friend. It smelled of eucalyptus in the parking lot and the free lotion, shampoo, mouthwash and feminine items (ahem) in the locker rooms won me. I love free things. Especially when I'm paying for them with high-priced membership fees.

2. Buying Lululemon. I joined believing I could get away with wearing my Target yoga pants and my Old Navy tank top. I'm not above peer pressure though. The peer pressure that comes from seeing it on every tiny little yoga body in my Ballet Body class (see #3). Plus, the gym is actually ABOVE a Lululemon so I just wandered in one day... as if I belonged. And my not-small butt walked out looking smaller and prettier (definitely poorer). Now, "Lulu" (as the insiders call it) has been in the news because their CEO seems to hate women and I'm not even going to touch that controvery because I happen to BE a woman. But it's my gym's fault that I'm weighing my taut bum vs my feminist ideals.

Maliciously stolen from http://www.theballetphysique.com/

3. Ballet Body.  When I was little my mom enrolled me in a tap class because I'd begged and begged. We were super poor so my folks really had to scrounge for the money for tap shoes. According to local legend (my mom), the class was one of those join whenever kind of things so my first day was not the first day for many of my peers, but maybe their 20th day. Or their 8000th. I don't believe I was rude or improper as my mother wouldn't have allowed this, but apparently I expressed my frustration that no one was teaching me and I was just supposed to KNOW. The instructor told my mother I was a sociopath and I never went back. I'm not sure exactly what a sociopath is, but I'm pretty sure I wasn't at 6 nor am I now. Narcissist, maybe. Definitely self-involved. But nothing pathological.

ANYWAY, my gym has these barre classes (google it) and they're called Ballet Body. First of all. I do not and will not ever have a ballet body. I have, at best, a bowling pin body. It's fine. I own it. But push me a little and I may or may not topple knocking everyone else over on my way down... or I may just fall alone, in the corner, and laugh. My gym has made me believe this is okay. And this is the reason I keep paying for it.

4. For the love of money/socks. I've forgotten many things when packing my gym bag in the morning. I've shown up with 3 tops and no bottoms. Once I had 2 left shoes and no right. I really hate when I don't have any hair ties/bands. Today, I forgot socks. Luckily, my gym has a lobby full of overpriced items like $10 energy bars, $5 bottles of water, $100 yog mats. And $15 pairs of socks. Since I'd bothered to drive there and I was even there in time for my VIPR class (I'm super tough, yo), my alternatives of blisters or leaving just didn't seem worth it. So I took my selected magical socks to the counter and told the lady at the counter I was in the market for some magic slippers (she wasn't impressed by my joke).

Holy shit. These socks are amazing. Like, I want to wear them on my hands and snuggle them in my sleep. $15 socks. No more $6 for 3 pairs at H&M (that's $1/sock!). No more mismatched, off color, falls down below the edge of my shoes shit-socks. Just, these. Because I'm super bourgeois and fancy. (Except totally not and also totally cheap/not rich.)

**Note to my friends. You will be getting these for your next birthday/holiday. You will hate me until you wear them. And then you will love me. And then you will hate me again because you won't want your feet touching shit-socks anymore. You'll want fancy socks.