This post is a little long. I apologize in advance, but hope you learn a little bit from it. I did.
A little over a week ago, I told you about my first trip back to the gym in a long time when, for some reason that I still can’t explain, I thought it was a good idea to take a “boxing class.” And to tell you the truth, once I regained feeling in all of my extremities I felt pretty good. So maybe it wasn’t that bad of an idea. I guess I owe Connie (the instructor who has no idea we’re talking about her here) an apology. Sorry Connie for all of those times I flipped you off inside the boxing gloves when you thought I was just “keeping my gloves up.” I’ll see you again Saturday morning.
This is another one of my poke-fun-at-Nick posts where I could have avoided embarrassment with some simple planning.
Here’s what happened:
I woke up early yesterday to do “arms” and “abs.” (Is it still called “abs” if you only have one big one?). This gym has a very “fancy” locker-locking mechanism. It’s like a hotel safe except not digital. There are four spinners with numbers on them. You set your code, spin the lock and then jumble your code. When you’re done, you enter your code again and (if all goes according to plan) spin the lock back and you’re in.
Can you see where this is going?
I completed my workout and decide to try out the sauna. I open my locker, strip out of my workout clothes, wrap a towel around myself and try to lock the locker again. But it wouldn’t let me lock it for some reason. So I loaded up my stuff into the next one. That one wouldn’t let me lock it. So I loaded up my stuff and moved to the next one again. That one also wouldn’t let me lock it. I tried this three or four times until one locked.
I didn’t know it then, but this was the moment where everything went wrong.
The next fifteen minutes were fantastic. I was in the sauna, alone with my thoughts. Then I slowly walked back to my locker, spun the four spinners to my “code” and spun the lock. Nothing. I tried it again. Nothing. And again. Nothing. And again. Nothing. Nothing! Nothing!! Nothing!!!
Right about then I realized this was not going to end well for me or the poor woman at the front desk, who holds the master key. But I tried again and again. I re-spun the spinners. I tried tapping the lock. I tried pulling the door a bit. I jiggled (not just my belly). I tried everything I could think of. Nothing worked. I could not get out of the mess without addressing it head on (or, in this case, belly on).
I knew the locks were temperamental. All I needed to do to avoid the upcoming embarrassment was to leave one of my dollar-store workout shirts in one of the unlocked lockers or on the hook outside the sauna. What were you thinking, Nick, I thought!?!? I always have a back-up plan when I know there is a potential problem. But I wasn’t thinking. I always have an emergency fund with my money. I always have a spare key at a friend’s house. I always have a spare work pass available. Whenever I know something can go wrong, with money or otherwise, I have a back-up. This time I did not.
So I swallowed my pride, grabbed another one of the inevitably-too-small gym-provided towels and wrapped it around my shoulders to cover up as much of my “I just got back to the gym” physique (and match the “barely-covering my rump” towel I had around my waist) and took the walk of shame to ask the woman at the front desk for the key.
“Excuse me,” says the man wearing nothing but two “towels.” “Can I borrow the master key? I’ll explain more once I come back, but am trying to save each of us a little bit of embarrassment here and get through this quickly.”
With a nice little smile, she politely handed me the key and said: “Don’t worry. It happens all the time.” To be clear, her smile was not the “you’re cute” type-of smile. It was more like the “I can’t believe there is a weirdo wearing nothing but the two napkins he’s desperately clenching so they don’t fall off in front of me right now” type-of smiles.
Next time I’ll be ready. I guess sometimes I need to learn the hard way. This shouldn’t have been (but was) one of those times.
Fortunately this only resulted in embarrassment. But a mistake like this with your finances can leave you broke, or worse. So please, Please PLEASE make sure you don’t make a decision – especially one that you know can end poorly – without a back-up plan.
Always ask yourself “what’s the worst that can happen.” Say it out loud! Then ask yourself (at least three times) “then what,” “then what,” “then what.”
Then make a list of what you can do to avoid the “worst thing.” Separately, make a list of what you can do to lessen the blow of the “worst thing” if you’re unable to avoid it.
I could have tried locking and unlocking the locker a few times to make sure it worked. And I could have had a shirt with me to lessen the blow. Now I know. Never again!
Have you ever had an embarrassing moment like this where there was a simple solution that could have avoided the pain? How about in your financial life? What’s one mistake you’ve made that could have easily been avoided? Or, what’s one mistake you’ve made where you could have done something to lessen the blow? How did it end? Embarrassment? Did it cost you money? Did you learn from it?
Until next time, put your credit card down and slowly step away from the mall!
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