It’s not me, it’s you

Dear Portland State University Weight Room,

It’s over. I’m done with you and your 4 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. operating weekday summer hours, lack of air conditioning and prehistoric weight machines. My new lover, 24 Hour Fitness, shows me the kind of caring you never did.

I thought we had something special. You were cheap. You were easy. I could conveniently work out between classes. You were overcrowded and didn’t have the best equipment, but you didn’t cost me anything except incidental fees that come with my university enrollment.

But then you became distant and closed off in the summer time. In the spring, you were open to students at most hours of the morning and night, excluding about 11 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.

Then June rolled around and you were only willing to take me between 6:30 a.m. to 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. I’m in college. I rarely wake up before 9 a.m. You know that. So we can only spend time together for two and a half hours a day? Obviously my incidental fees that keep you operating don’t mean as much to you as I thought. You’re not very flexible on the weekends either, being open only from 12:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.

So I’m gone. You might not notice, seeing as you already took my $20 or so for the locker I rented for the summer. I won’t be using it again, though. After missing more than a week’s worth of workouts because of your awful scheduling, I plunked down $30 a month for 24 Hour Fitness, a gym that’s happy to take me at all hours of the day.

Since I met a gym that cares for my needs last weekend, I see you’ve extended your hours from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. Am I not the only one who complained about your horrendous scheduling? Did I simply give up on you, whereas others pressed for better hours and managed to persuade the Portland State University Campus Recreation Department to make a change?

I’ll let them savor the victory. I’m not coming back to you, not after the way you treated me.

It’s a shame you can’t be like the other university gyms in the state. The University of Oregon weight room, for example, is open from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. Saturday and noon to 11 p.m. on Sunday. That’s not unusual for state schools, and it’s the kind of scheduling I’ve come to expect at any university.

You tell me wonderful things about how great it’ll be someday. You’ll scrap your 44-year-old self and be a new $35 million gym as early as January 2010. Everything will be bigger and better in a grand recreation monastery beholden of workout equipment light years beyond your current offerings. One of your overseers, Alex Accetta, director of campus recreation at Portland State, was quoted this February as saying that among your new incarnation’s many highlights, you’ll be open more often.

I sometimes wonder if you’ll actually change before my expected graduation in winter 2010. I’m not sure. But one part of the new you is concerning: You’ll cost every student $23 per month in incidental fees to operate, according to the campus recreation Web site. That’s almost the same price of a membership usable at every 24 Hour Fitness in America. That’s 24 hours. Per day. Seven days a week. I hope you can at least come close to those hours with every student at Portland State University giving you $23 per month.

If not, then you apparently will have changed very little. And you’ll be breaking the hearts of the incoming set of Portland State students, just like you did mine.