About The Gym; No, The Other Gym

Maybe a month ago I was at the gym for my swim class*, and hanging out stretching in the pool with the others as usual, waiting for the class to start, when someone mentioned that she'd been talking to the manager, and he said that they were going to be cancelling some classes, and he hoped ours wouldn't be one of them. Yikes! As I said at the time, the class is what I joined for; I want more than one a week, not none (I find laps much harder to motivate myself through, whereas the class requires motivation once, just to leave the house and go).
*Which is what I tend to call it, but it isn't learning to swim, it's water aerobics.

Someone else mentioned, in the course of that conversation, that there was another gym that had multiple classes per week, which I hadn't even known was in this area, but it turns out it is; I looked it up when I got home, and indeed they do have multiple classes (bonus: their website was also much easier to navigate than Gym #1's). I decided to visit it and see if I wanted to switch. I finally went last Thursday, and what do you know: for a lower monthly cost (considerably lower), I can choose between three classes without impacting my work schedule, as well as three more that are during the day on weekdays. Six classes a week! Good heavens.

In terms of miles, it's about the same distance from home as Gym #1, and the drive is slightly easier in terms of traffic--so far, anyway, but Gym #1 is in a very busy area at the confluence of multiple busy roads, the kind of thing where you'd better know which lane you need to be in before you get there, which kind of stressed me out at rush hour. Meanwhile, Gym #2 is in a strip mall, and while it is on a busy road, it's in an area where I know the back roads. When my friend had her twins, all those years ago*, and I would go over sometimes (as often as she would let me, basically) and "help out" with the babies, well, they lived near there then.
*Oh, mercy, the boys will be nine in August. How can that be?

Gym #2 doesn't provide towels, but I was bringing my own anyway, and they don't provide shampoo, which I can also easily bring on my own. I went to the class Saturday morning (not something I plan to do regularly, but just to see how it went), and it seems just fine.

Mind you, one thing I didn't see that they had was the spinner machine that gets the excess water out of your swimsuit, which is something I found helpful in terms of how long it takes to dry ... but that is not a deal-breaker. If need be, I can buy a second suit, so that I don't have to worry about it being dry for Thursday night.

Interestingly, I was expecting some level of hard sell about leaving Gym #1, but it seems they couldn't care less. To wit:

• I called them when I got home Thursday night to ask if I could cancel over the phone, and the kid told me that I would have to speak to a manager about that, but he could take my info and ask someone to call me back. 
• Friday afternoon, when I hadn't heard, I called again and asked for a manager; the guy asked what it was about, and then he put me on hold for a minute before coming back to say that the manager must be on another line, because it went to voice mail. So he took my information, looking me up to confirm he had it right, and said he would give it to the manager. 
• Fifteen minutes later, I got an email with an "invoice" (no charge) about my cancellation request. 
• And Sunday, when I would normally have been charged the monthly fee, I was charged less, which I assume is the cancellation fee. 
• Just for the hell of it, I called today, to confirm that the account was showing up cancelled, and the woman I spoke with said it was.

And at no point did anyone ask me why. Which, fine, I wasn't going to change my mind anyway, but why wouldn't they want to know? It's a hell of a way to run a railroad.

Meanwhile, I will emulate Dory.

In a different place, but still swimming.