Day 4

I want to join the gym at some point in the next week. Word on the street is, flailing your arms around a bit is a pretty effective way of staving off the overwhelming desire to either curl up under a duvet indefinitely or destroy the world with a hammer (3 days sans-nicotine, people - I promise I'll cheer up soon).

It'll only cost me about £15 a month, and there's a gym literally thirty seconds away from my office. Just one slight problem to deal with first however - the entire process of joining a gym fucking terrifies me.

First up, I need EQUIPMENT. Unfathomably dull conversations I've overheard throughout my life have evidently informed the back of my brain that I will need special shoes. Advice from friends remains vague, yet consistent: I should go in and explain what I want them for, and the people in the shop will help me.

This is a kind lie. I've seen your Dad's Hi-Fi. Bloke in the shop said it was top of the range. Every day, grown men inexplicably leave Dixons with enough HDMI cabling to tie a small horse to a radiator. I know what happens when you go to the elephant graveyard.

HELP ME THEY ARE RED THEY LOOK GOOD ARE THEY GOOD? OH GOD.

The website of the gym I've chosen somewhat suspiciously invites me to "Pop down to the Basement... We'd be delighted to meet you... BOOK YOUR INDUCTION NOW", the latter part hyperlinking me to an email address of a woman called Kim.

But I've already been inducted into the world of the gym though, about 7 years ago at 'Dave's Gym' in Northwich - an establishment I feel in retrospect would be more aptly named 'Dave's Macho Academy'. Myself and an equally geeky chap called Ryan went once or twice to PUMP SOME MO'FO'IN IRON before retreating to KFC for a post work-out meal of hydrogenated fat served in red bucket. Ryan admirably seemed unfazed by the world of metal discs and strange contraptions, but I however was consistently secretly terrified of almost everything. I still have very fond memories of this however, and seem to recall that at one point in KFC I cracked what we decided at the time was likely to be the funniest joke ever in the history of everything.

YOU COME DAVE. MAKE GOOD ARMS.

I admit, it's unlikely the gym based in my office block will be anything like 'Dave's Academy for the Mentally N/A', but it still retains a giant '?' hovering above the entire experience. My entire life I've feigned natural competency by simply observing how things work from afar before jumping in, but from what I've read in the papers, spending your nights peering through windows at aerobics classes can have unwanted ramifications.

As I reach the end of my brain splurge for today however, my broken resolve has dragged me to an inevitable conclusion: Next week I'll begrudgingly buy some overpriced trainers and a T-shirt/tracksuit bottoms combo that will somehow manage to make me look ten years younger and ten years older simultaneously, ensuring that I look suitably out of place whilst I fumble around failing to admit that I am in fact still just a frightened boy who'd rather be bathed in the comfort of fried chicken.

But first of all I suppose I'd better email Kim to book my INDUCTION. A woman who apparently can't wait for me to come and meet her. In a basement.

I hope for her sake she's bought enough HDMI cabling.