fail of the day: face your flaws

New fail, people (curiously these always get the highest number of page viewings)! And this one is good, I tell you, real good. In other words, very very embarrassing.

So I've been going to the gym here for about 3 months now. The instructors are always polite and say welcome and goodbye (at least I assume that's what they're saying; it's all jibberijabberi to me) and so on. Lately I've been involved in private conversation with 2 of them - one girl, one guy. And by 'conversation' I'm not talking about deep contemplative discourses, but rather 'where are you from' and 'why did you come to Japan' level (I wish they would stop asking me the latter one - I don't know! Why not?).

Anyway, today I was sort of clutching/massaging/feeling up my knee during squats as it was a tad painful, and the guy came up saying jibberijabberi (which I interpreted as 'is your knee ok?' as he was pointing to his own knee while speaking - genius, aren't I?) so I took a chance and said (in Japanese, mind) 'yeah, no problem'. This is not the fail. Turns out I was right. Then he started jibberijabbering even more and I had to ashamedly confess I did not speak Japanese (again, in Japanese) and he sort of gave up, as they usually do. Then the guy in the bench press next to me came to my rescue and asked about something knee-related in English. So far, so good.

So I ventured into a conversation with this guy who I always, always see in the gym as we usually train at the same time, both hijacking the stationary bar machine. Secretly I've always found him excruciatingly annoying as he takes a-a-ages on it. Have to forgive him now I suppose. So we talked, and he told me he worked at the gym. And brace yourself, because here we go:

I honest to deity-of-your-choice cannot recall ever seeing him in the Central (gym name) shirt that the instructors wear. I admitted this fact to him, thinking maybe I've just never seen him. Turns out he works every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Sunday. And here's the best part: for the past 3 months I have been there more or less every single Tuesday, Wednesday, and Sunday. He said he's seen me many times. Oh. Dear. Deity. Then I got to use my Japanese skills again to apologise about a hundred times for not recognising him.

I must be suffering from face blindness or something, because that's just ridiculous. Then again I did think the PT and the instructor (who asked me about the knee) were the same person until I saw them in the gym at the same time, wearing different clothes a couple of weeks ago.

Jeez.

Jo x