Hey, it says you have been a member here before?
Said the lady, peering at the screen before her.
I was at the reception desk of my soon-to-be new gym. The old one with its lack of toilet doors and dubious fluids scattered around the changing area was no more. I had terminated my membership and was on the hunt for a new place.
I had plumped for this one. I quite liked the look of it. It seemed quite snazzy but also, in a way, strangely reassuring.
I snapped my attention back to Reception Lady.
Who me? A member? Here?
Yes, way back in 2002!
The reception lady looked inordinately happy at the idea I was that old.
Back when!?
I made a face of disgust and horror at the idea as if I had licked an old woman's foot.
I hardly think so, I mean, why would I have needed a gym back then?
I waved a hand airily at my Adonis of a physique as if I barely needed one now. Let alone tenteen million years ago.
I mean I could only have been about twenty odd years old?
The lady drew her eyes over my youthful face, downward to my astonishingly honed body then back to my face.
Um, twenty something? Ok...
She tinkled a merry laugh at the idea that once I could have possibly been a young lion lolopping across the Savannah on the hunt for meat.
I squinted at her as if through an intense fog.
I am quite sure I would remember if I had been a member of this gym before.
I uttered loftily, turning my head slightly to the side so she could get a good look at my sexy side-on.
Is this you?
She flicked her screen around and pointed at a photo of an incredibly dashing and handsome younger me on the display.
Well, yes.
I rather grudgingly admitted.
The face on the display was indeed mine. Had I been hacked?
Was this something... Russian?
Excellent, well, I can just reactivate your old membership then. Saves me taking all your details again.
She smiled as if she were doing me some kind of massive favour.
I smiled coldly back.
Daft mare, I thought. What did she think I was? Some kind of Michael J Fox figure darting back and forth through time snorting my mother-to-be's cleft and joining random gyms to perplex my future self?
I still didn't remember having been a member of this place before? There must be some kind of mistake.
Unless... Perhaps this was a conspiracy? Was Greta Thumb-berg hiding in the changing rooms with a broken canoe and a video camera ready to expose my world burning ways?
I squared my shoulders back and lifted my chin up. I wasn't going to take this lying down. If I can't remember it then it didn't happen, if I had to go radge and smash the place up to prove it then...
So... If I reactivate your old membership you won't have to pay a joining fee of twenty pounds...
Reception Lady looked at me and smiled wickedly.
Does that jog your memory any?
Slowly, menacingly, I raised my right eyebrow and nodded.
Ah yes. That's right, I remember now, years ago. Smashing. Carry on.