Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Lieber Vlad,

Our Siberian aupair’s year is up. It doesn’t matter: we tied him up in the attic and are keeping him as a slave. Just kidding. He’s bigger than all of us put together. Good old Dmitry. He’s still living with us, doing the Tuesday baked noodle dinner, dog-walking and channel-surfing while looking for a job that will help him avoid the suicidal Russian army. The first thing Dima needs is some money. So what’s the first thing he does? He signs up for exclusive membership at the local fitness club. 70 euros a month. No exit. He tried to explain that he has no income and his visa status is shaky so that free 2-month membership trial shouldn’t have been automatically extended. They didn’t care, just showed him his signature on the contract. I wonder if mandatory fitness club membership is a legitimate reason to be exempt from Russian military service. I could write to Mr. Putin and say Dima is a “required member” at the club. The Russian army is mean but these fitness club instructors are pretty heartless themselves.

5 comments:

Jeff said...

Ironic that he ran headfirst into the jaws of capitalism...

Get a copy of the contract - there's usually some type of escape or freeze clause. Might take a doctor's note. Could get off with just a small fee...

Just a thought...

SarahJane said...

capitalism embraced him!
he WILL try with a doctor's note.
otherwise i may ask if they'll let me take over his contract, but I haven't floated that yet considering I've no desire to get fit or pay 70 euros a month for it

BJeronimo said...

A friend is trying to avoid service in the Turkish army. His tack is to gain exemption through obesity. He's a large guy and needs to gain 20 pounds. Perhaps if he gets the exemption he could take of Dima's fitness club membership.

SarahJane said...

Will he get disability payments with that?

BJeronimo said...

He's in the US and I think he'd be happy to just not have to serve. He wants to be able to travel back.

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