Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Scarcity

A quick update on my local gym, which refuses to accept my money, as previously mentioned. We went there tonight and there was a new guy behind the counter. We explained that we'd like to join, but since we were running late for our punchy-kicky class we asked if we could come by afterwards and do all the paperwork and pay him then.

"Tell you what", he said, "Just go to the class and don't worry about joining. Just join the next time you come."

So we said, "Okay!"

The consensus from comments on my previous post on this topic was that they were using my perfect physique as a kind of walking testament to the efficacy of their service, and hence were happy to let me have free membership. This certainly fits all the facts available, but now I am wondering if there isn't a more bizarre explanation. (I call this method of reasoning "Occam's tweezers" - if everything else is equal, the most bizarro explanation is most likely to be true.)

I think that perhaps the gym is run by time-travellers from the far future, members of post-scarcity economy, who simply don't understand our primitive insistence on paying for things.

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