Musings at Altitude

I walked into the fitness center this morning at 4:50.  Three others beat me in, one being on the elliptical, one being on a stationary bike, and the third being on the treadmill.  All of them were older than me, and I’m half dead at 50.

As I climbed onto the second treadmill in the room, I quickly scanned the others and they were all intently staring at the TV up in the corner near the door.  It was a Time Life advertisement for “Midnight Train”, “only available on TV”, “restored and remastered”, “never before released”….you get the picture!

I quickly put on my headphones, cranked up the iPod, and blasted my favorite tunes.  But I kept looking up at the TV, drawn to the groups flashing across the screen in 10 second or less increments.  Sadly, I knew all of them, and the more I watched (even though I couldn’t hear), the more I wanted the collection!

As I scanned the room again, I realized we were all the obvious target audience for that particular set, playing at that particular time, on that particular channel, to entice each of us to be one of the discount induced “first 100 callers” to order exactly at that moment.

Sadly, none of us stopped our workouts and rushed to our phones to take advantage of that “very special offer”.

But I certainly wanted too!