This post is like a Clint Eastwood movie

The good:

Tuesday afternoon, I went to a doctor that I have been seeing for SEVEN weeks about an health issue. Seven weeks ago I was told to stop working out - cardio and weights. Tuesday he cleared me to start being able to exercise again. The happiness that I felt after he said those words was pretty cool and it helped me realize that my mind is changing into a healthier mindset.

The bad:

He told me not to work out very hard and start at 20 minutes. Also, for the time being I should stick to cardio only. I realized that I would have to ramp up to the level that I was at before this happened, but wasn't too worried about it. Umm...I can't really come up with much else that is soley bad...everything is pretty much overshadowed by the "good" so I have to stop this paragraph. :)

The ugly:

So there I am working out... I'm hitting the elliptical at the same rate I was before (albeit on a lower intensity level). I was at a high number of steps per minute and I'm feeling pretty great actually. I'm listening to my new workout mix - full of songs that I have deliberately tried NOT to listen to because I want them to feel fresh during my workout. And that's when it hits me.

I cannot remember the combination to the lock. You know, the one that I just put on the 24 Hour Fitness' locker. The one that has all my stuff in it.

For the rest of the work out, I'm trying to think of any memorization technique to bring back the combination. I tried to use "The Secret," I tried to picture the combination on the piece of paper that was stuck to the lock when I bought it. I was remembering numbers! It worked. I was sure that 3 was in it. I was sure that that was the second number. And I was sure that there was a 36 and a 25.

I walked up to my combination lock, took a deep breath and tried 36, 3, 25. Which did not work.

So there I am, sweating profusely, and trying not to look like a creepy person that is trying to break into someone else's locker. All I can remember is that there was a 3 in the combination. And then I convince myself that the other two numbers are multiples of three. All of the sudden, I turn into that guy from "A Beautiful Mind" because I'm coming up with all possible combinations of three, or multiples thereof. I'm practically using Differential Equations and graphs of derivates of x to come up with the stupid fricking combination!

Every time, I think to myself, "Yes! That's it!"

Except that it's not.

For a moment, I consider living in the locker room. After all, I have an iPod, I have access to a shower, and 24 Hour Fitness gives out samples of power bars often. But I figure that people may actually start to notice and I think it's against the contract that I signed.

I finally break down and go to the front office where Dimitry is and tell him that I am an idiot. A sweating idiot who cannot for the life of her remember the combination.

Then comes the walk of shame - with an employee caring bolt cutters that are almost bigger than her past all of the people I just worked out with...all the way through the locker room...to cut my lock.

Afterwards, I went to go looking for a new lock. My old one was a Masterlock and was pink. Very cute. But it turns out that many women get a cute lock...so sometimes it was hard to remember which locker was mine.

All I saw at the local Safeway was a plain old black lock. I was torn. I want a new lock so that I can work out...but I didn't want a boring black one. My little sister suggested putting a sticker on it to decorate it. I was thinking about how I could never find a sticker that would look cute on the lock, when a vision of our office's jackass hit me.

So here's my new lock.

Isn't it cute? And no, I don't know the combination. :)