One year ago today, I’d signed up for a membership at our local Curves gym. It was an impulse thing, to be honest: I’d had a day to myself and decided to visit the mall where I saw a group of women my age, and about my build, walking in to the place. They were actually smiling.

Smiling before going to the gym? Hey, that was something I needed to check out, I figured.

The skinny little woman behind the desk was only too happy to show me around the place, not that I needed much help: all of the machines were in one room where butcher paper blocked the windows and prevented inquiring eyes from watching the ladies work out. There was a tiny little changing area off to one side — no showers, no dreaded locker room — and a half-dozen women, most older than me, going through the exercise circuit.

I signed up right then and there, not particularly caring that the monthly membership cost twice as much as the fancy new gym located behind the very same strip mall. (One which, incidentally, offers spa services, tanning beds, an indoor track, classes, a juice bar, yoga, personal TVs on the various machines and child care.)

The next day, I made it to Curves at 7 a.m., the perfect time to squeeze in a half-hour workout and return home before my husband had to leave for work. The routine was fun, although the oldies music was rather annoying. I spent the rest of the day with Fontella Bass’s “Rescue Me” stuck in my head.

A day later, I was back again: this time, however, a different director was there. She wasn’t just skinny, she was downright emaciated and terribly, terribly perky. Halfway through the circuit, she decided we all needed to play a game: this one happened to involve fuzzy dice that we were to pick up and roll, and if you threw an even number you got to pick out a silly movement that everyone else had to repeat while they were on the jogging stations between machines.

I stood there patting my head and rubbing my stomach thanks to a 60-something year-old woman’s “lucky” toss of the dice and found myself thinking: Oh, no. I am not playing stupid games every time I come here. I want to work out, and I want to do it without being self-conscious. I do not want to have to participate in a group activity like I’m some kindergarten child who needs to be entertained.

The next time I went back it was in the evening. I’d hoped going at a different time of day might mean no stupid games. I was wrong. This time there was a spinner in the middle of the floor and whomever was on a particular station got to spin the dial. The person it pointed to had to sing along with the Supremes — or whatever other oldie band was playing — in front of the others.

I “twisted my ankle” as an excuse to get the hell out of there, and I never went back.

As of yesterday, my contract with Curves expired. One year of payments on a membership to a gym I only went to three times. A gym, I might add, that’s now rumored to be closing in part because people figured out that the fancy one not three doors down didn’t make them play stupid games while only costing half as much for ten times as many amenities.

I’ve got nothing to show for that membership: not firmer thighs, not a flatter stomach, not a higher and more firmly toned butt. I’m out a couple of hundred dollars. But hey, at least I have one of their cute little personalized pens.