The nature of a contract / Gold's Gym Sucks

Gold's Gym has one of the most ironclad contracts in the business, according to my attorney. I signed up, and two weeks later my life situation changed drastically and I could no longer afford the membership. They stuck like epoxy to their 3-day recission clause and would not budge an inch. When I changed my credit card to stop the automatic billing, they came after me with their collection lawyers and threatened to sue, and to ruin my credit (which was in the toilet anyway, but that's beside the point.) Now that my contract has expired, and these slime-molds have all the money they are due, I can get this off my chest and move on.

This outfit is iconic of everything that is wrong with corporate America.



My takeaways:

1. "Legal" does not always mean "Right"; Hell is full of such penurious moneygrubbers.
   
2. Read Your Contract Carefully Before Signing.
   
3. I will never, ever, ever do business with Gold's Gym again, and I advise you to do likewise, and tell all your friends the same. Find a gymnasium that works on a month-to-month basis.

 

A Favorite Children's Poem

THE TALE OF CUSTARD THE DRAGON

By Ogden Nash

©Linell Nash Smith and Isabel Nash Eberstadt

(The delightful illustrations are from Two Hundred Best Poems for Boys and Girls, compiled by Marjorie Barrows, Whitman Publishing Company, 1938. As was not uncommon for those days, no credit is given the artist who drew them.)

Belinda lived in a little white house,
With a little black kitten and a little gray mouse,
And a little yellow dog and a little red wagon,
And a realio, trulio, little pet dragon.

Now the name of the little black kitten was Ink,
And the little gray mouse, she called her Blink,
And the little yellow dog was sharp as Mustard,
But the dragon was a coward, and she called him Custard.

Custard the dragon had big sharp teeth,
And spikes on top of him and scales underneath,
Mouth like a fireplace, chimney for a nose,
And realio, trulio, daggers on his toes.



Belinda was as brave as a barrel full of bears,
And Ink and Blink chased lions down the stairs,
Mustard was as brave as a tiger in a rage,
But Custard cried for a nice safe cage.

Belinda tickled him, she tickled him unmerciful,
Ink, Blink and Mustard, they rudely called him Percival,
They all sat laughing in the little red wagon
At the realio, trulio, cowardly dragon.

Belinda giggled till she shook the house,
And Blink said Week!, which is giggling for a mouse,
Ink and Mustard rudely asked his age,
When Custard cried for a nice safe cage.

Suddenly, suddenly they heard a nasty sound,
And Mustard growled, and they all looked around.
Meowch! cried Ink, and Ooh! cried Belinda,
For there was a pirate, climbing in the winda.

Pistol in his left hand, pistol in his right,
And he held in his teeth a cutlass bright,
His beard was black, one leg was wood;
It was clear that the pirate meant no good.

Belinda paled, and she cried, Help! Help!
But Mustard fled with a terrified yelp,
Ink trickled down to the bottom of the household,
And little mouse Blink strategically mouseholed.

But up jumped Custard, snorting like an engine,
Clashed his tail like irons in a dungeon,
With a clatter and a clank and a jangling squirm
He went at the pirate like a robin at a worm.

The pirate gaped at Belinda's dragon,
And gulped some grog from his pocket flagon,
He fired two bullets but they didn't hit,
And Custard gobbled him, every bit.

Belinda embraced him, Mustard licked him,
No one mourned for his pirate victim
Ink and Blink in glee did gyrate
Around the dragon that ate the pirate.



Belinda still lives in her little white house,
With her little black kitten and her little gray mouse,
And her little yellow dog and her little red wagon,
And her realio, trulio, little pet dragon.

Belinda is as brave as a barrel full of bears,
And Ink and Blink chase lions down the stairs,
Mustard is as brave as a tiger in a rage,
But Custard keeps crying for a nice safe cage.