{"id":3238,"date":"2025-06-08T08:50:21","date_gmt":"2025-06-08T12:50:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/?p=3238"},"modified":"2025-06-08T08:50:21","modified_gmt":"2025-06-08T12:50:21","slug":"amnesty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/2025\/06\/08\/amnesty\/","title":{"rendered":"Amnesty"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A few years back, not long after we\u2019d moved into our current home, Jim and I joined a health club connected to the hospital where he worked.   He had a free membership and I got a discount as a spouse.   I wanted to use the pool to keep up with my swimming since I was working from home more and the pool on campus wasn\u2019t convenient.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it started out…okay, most of the time.\u00a0 Most of the staff were friendly and the check-in process each time was easy – provided someone in front of me hadn\u2019t forgotten their pin.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The pool was good and usually<\/em> not too crowded, but on days where the local high school swim team used the pool, all the rec swimmers had to share a single lane. \u00a0 \u00a0 Sharing with one person is not too bad, but more than that and I would usually get frustrated.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t like to be one of those \u201cI\u2019m paying good money for\u2026\u201d  but I was and it was not a great experience.  Also, there are few things louder or more obnoxious than teen-age boys in a locker room. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, I got tired of it. \u00a0 Jim changed jobs and it was no longer viable for him to go there – so when my year was up, I went through the needlessly complicated process to quit.\u00a0 If I didn\u2019t provide a letter of nonrenewal – in writing and signed – they would keep charging my credit card.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was irritation upon irritation and I was glad to be done with them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Except, not quite. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every year since then, I\u2019ve gotten a letter from the health club offering – get this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAmnesty for Past Members – Pay No Enrollment Fee\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  1. An enrollment fee is pure bullshit.\u00a0 It\u2019s your job to enroll people and you want them to be enrolled. Charging a fee to do that is greedy and dumb.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. Amnesty: (noun)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n
    \n

    an official pardon for people who have been convicted of political offenses.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

    Really?  I dropped my membership because I was annoyed and you are equating that to a political crime?   I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s worse if they don\u2019t know what the word means – or if they do, and they really think it\u2019s that bad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    I\u2019m not going to \u201cRejoin Today!\u201d  and I\u2019m not going to \u201cContact Membership before it\u2019s too late!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    I\u2019m tossing the letter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    And I\u2019m tired of people and their awful systems.\u00a0 And the endless amplification of the mundane. Hope about never charging an enrollment fee? And maybe just a friendly, “We’ve love to have you back and we kicked out the swim team,”
    <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Until then, I’m going to skip the “Get out of political prison free” card. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    A few years back, not long after we\u2019d moved into our current home, Jim and I joined a health club connected to the hospital where he worked.   He had a free membership and I got a discount as a spouse.   I wanted to use the pool to keep up with my swimming since […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_bluesky_dont_syndicate":"","_bluesky_syndication_accounts":"","_bluesky_syndication_text":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3238"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3238\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3239,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3238\/revisions\/3239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}