Black Friday on a Saturday in January

Yesterday was a big day for the YMCAs in the Triad. They held registration for a program called Transformation Nation Triad. TNT is a 16 week FREE event that the Ys and WXII (a local news channel) are sponsoring. The program includes once-a-week group classes and information on nutritional information and is open to anyone needing to lose weight. To register for this program, you just had to go to the YMCA location where you wanted to participate. Each location offered different time slots (about 5-6 at each location) and you could pick which slot you wanted to be in.

Jason and I had heard about TNT and we were very interested in signing up because, god knows, we need some help with this weight loss thing. I think we need to be held accountable to someone other than ourselves because we allow each other to cheat with snacks and what not.

The main website for the Triad Ys advertised that sign-up for TNT would be held from Saturday, 1/28, to Friday, 2/3. So, when we discussed our game plan for Saturday, we decided we would just sleep in and then mosey over to the Y closest to us (Robinhood, which by the way, we're members of) to sign up.... Our plans ended up being changed when Jason read the Facebook status of one of the trainers at the Robinhood Y (he's friends with her on that site). The trainer's status stated that the Robinhood Y opened at 7am and anyone looking to sign up for TNT should get there early. For some reason this made me nervous. I told Jason that I thought we should get up and get out there, rather than sleep in. He thought this was overkill, but he realized how freaked out I was and agreed to get up at 6:30am on a Saturday.

Soooo, we got to our YMCA around 6:50am... to find a line semi-worthy of a Black Friday sale at Best Buy. Our eyes popped. Neither one of us was expecting this. So, we hustled out of our car and started to head to the back of the line. As we were heading there, a lady in line decided to let us know what we're actually lining up for - A. Waiting. List. Huh??? It turns out that each YMCA location was only taking 125 people And, there were waaaay more than that in line. This meant that the first 125 were getting registered and the rest of us were being put on a waiting list in case an opening became available. The very first people in line (a couple) had gotten there around 1:30am. What the hell? I think the rest of the 123 people were in line by 5:00am or so. Seriously?

Jason and I got in line, but continued to discuss if it was actually worth it to do this. The waiting list was, obviously going to be a first come, first served process and we were so far back in the line that even if replacements did get into the program, the odds of us being those replacements were slim to none.

In the end we decided to stick it out and get our applications in. We're hoping that the YMCAs and/or WXII will decide that there were too many people getting turned away and will hold this event later this year and give the waiting list people priority or, even better, they somehow find a way to make things work now for us all. I doubt the latter will work just because of space. I knew there would have to be a finite amount of people who got into this program, but I didn't realize it would be such a small number.

Sigh. So, Jason and I are just going to have to suck it up and do what we have to do to lose the weight on our own. I know it can be done. We just need to figure out how.