<Originally posted elsewhere on January 2nd, 2009>
I'm about to be really unprofessional. But I figure that since it's a friends-only blog, I'm only being unprofessional with roughly 92 people and given the number of *other* people in the world, those are decent odds that this will not bite me in the ass.
I got a call in early December from the secretary of one of the more prominent injury lawyers in town. His firm floods daytime TV with commercials so OF COURSE I knew who he was. To simplify things and protect the guilty, we'll call him Ambulance Chaser (or AC, for short).
Anywho, AC was looking for a personal trainer and his secretary was doing the dirty work because that is apparently what secretaries do these days. (I've decided that I need a secretary, btw. Anyone interested?) She said he lived in <unnamed town> and I told her that he was too far from where I live and wished her luck in finding someone. She thanked me and hung up.
She called me back the following week and said that AC really wanted to work with me and what would it take to get me there. That would be bling-bling-ching-ching Ambulance Chaser! Since I don't plan to be in a car accident soon with fake chiropractic problems, I thought extra money seemed appropriate. She checked with AC who said that my request was not a problem and we set up a consultation appointment.
I told Ambulance Chaser Secretary that the consultation appointment was to do a medical history, legal waivers (ha!), set goals, and get to know him. I specifically mentioned that we would not be working out. We also discussed availability and she asked if I was available on Wednesday evenings. I told her that shouldn't be a problem.
I arrived at his palatial mansion last Monday evening. You know the type... circular driveway with the fountain that is ON ALL THE TIME (what recession?), more columns than you can shake a stick at, and at least 5000 square feet of filthy stinking neck-brace rich.
He answered the door and was more or less what I expected... a rich overweight white lawyer. His house, however, was not. The floor was beautiful travertine with fantastic inlaid patterns and they had cheap carpet runners that looked like they came from the set of a 70's porno running down every hallway. The walls, which were decked out with super expensive paint (you could tell that a can of Behr's had never seen the inside of this house) and nearly every inch of wall space was covered with perhaps the most hideous art I've ever seen.
"This is my wife, Mrs. Ambulance Chaser. She's an artist."
I smiled and said "Wow. There's so much to look at," which was about the most diplomatic thing I could come up with.
Hear me when I say that words cannot accurately describe the hideosity (I don't know if that's a word but it should be) that was this house. It was like a Hippy Gypsy store had nasty fluid sex with a elementary school craft fair and then they had a creeptastic diseased ridden craft baby that was strewn all over the walls. It was wrong on just about every level.
He took me to his home gym and stated that he had warmed up and was ready to work out. I tried to cover my surprise as I explained that I hadn't planned to train him - we were just doing forms and getting to know each other. He asked if we could work out and do the forms later. In the most non-condescending tone I could muster (and this was REALLY hard), I explained that it would be unsafe and irresponsible for me to train him without doing at LEAST a medical history on him.
(Is the irony lost on anyone here? Me having to explain the importance of preliminary paperwork to a fucking lawyer? Really? Am I on camera right now?)
He relented to my paperwork and we headed back to the dining room (which apparently doubled as the Virgin Mary/painted baby display room) to do the medical stuff and legal forms.
During our conversation, I learned that he already had another trainer and he was training with her on Tuesday evenings so he wanted to work out with me either on Friday evenings or Saturday mornings.
This was news to me. I traditionally do not do recurring appointments on Friday evenings or weekends. What can I say, I'm a party animal and need to save my weekends for important events like Santa Pub Crawls, making boot covers for Burning Man and waxing my cats. (Clients also often cancel during those time periods thus creating a level of annoyance that I'd just as well avoid.)
He insisted that we work out after the paperwork session and at that point, I'd realized that I was auditioning for a job I didn't really want. I demo'd really basic exercises and he complained about nearly single one. I couldn't help but think of my 50 year old female client who could have laid him out flat with one side kick. *sigh* I hate whiners. I also realized that he would probably be one of those clients that has sudden "injuries" that prevent him from doing the carefully constructed program that I would write for him. (Again, I'm hoping the irony is about as obvious as a born again Christian in a sex club.)
The entire appointment probably couldn't have gone worse and for that I am grateful. Grateful I saved myself from having to drive to McMansion every week to train an Ambulance Chaser who might try to give me some of his wife's art for my birthday and who would probably try to sue me at some point because I suggested that chocolate covered macadamia nuts are not a health food. (Hey, me too!)
He declined to schedule an appointment and said he needed to check with his wife about their schedules. I smiled brightly, lied through my teeth that it was nice to meet him, and prayed to anyone who would listen during my 50 minute drive home that he would forget my name, forget my phone number and suffer some sort of amnesia due to a bathtub fall and not remember me at all.
Between that and the mostly insignificant voo-doo doll I have created of him (and regularly take a lit match to the feet), I'm hopful that I do NOT have a new client. And this is the first time in nearly five years that I've said that. Recession be damned, he is one headache I do not need. In fact, I think I probably need a wall of painted babies more than I need him. Hallelujah.
No comments:
Post a Comment