Thanks for the support!!! Unfortunately though, as I understand it, most gyms require the physical if you are going to join for any length of time. I have no idea if it is illegal or not, but they did charge us a nominal fee to see the quack upstairs.

But that’s not enough for Dr Pérez from whom I receive a severe dressing-down every six months. I’m not sure whether it’s because she’s a doctor or because she’s a woman, but whatever I do to improve myself is never. quite. enough.

May I say that you have broken the cardinal rule of blog commenting — you have posted a response that is actually much funnier than the original post could ever hope to be! (*laugh*) Seriously though, I like the gym hopping as a response to lack of progress — I had never really thought of that approach. We Americans lack imagination, in such a situation, we maintain our rarely used gym memberships in perpetuity out of guilt. It never occurs to us to just go to a new facility. So, tell me, have you ever successfully embraced your inner “activity man?”

Some, but by no means all of these gyms have insisted on the check-up. The first of these, when I was fairly fresh off the boat, has stuck in my mind.

Basically, I flunked every indicator. What was supposed to be low was high, and what was supposed to be high was low. I was as close to dead as a person with no apparent symptoms can be, and she didn’t mince her words telling me so. “You need to shape it up, Mr Matt,” she said in her try-hard English. “From now on you’re going to be an activity man.” “You mean I should go the gym?” I said. “Absolutely. You need to do the regular exercises and eat no more than four red meats a week.” “But if you don’t give me a clean bill of health they’re not going to let me join the gym!” I said. “Aha,” she said and started tapping her bottom lip with a ballpoint pen.

Eventually we hammered out a compromise. But this is a rare example of a near-perfect Catch-22 in the real world.