"How many has she got left?"

Trainer in Hove asked me this. Bit sheepish about it, like it was a daft thing to be asking.

It's not daft. It's the question.

He'd sold a block of ten. He had her on seven. She had herself on six. Neither of them had written a thing down since the invoice, which was in WhatsApp, somewhere above a photo of a dog.

So who's right?

Doesn't matter. That's the bit worth sitting with for a second.

Whatever they agree, one of them's out of pocket and neither will ever know which. If she's right, he's just worked an hour for free. If he's right, she's paid for a session she'll never take. They'll settle on six and a half in spirit, both feel vaguely done over, and start the next block on exactly the same footing.

Why nobody writes it down

Because there's no moment to. The session ends, you're straight into the next one, and by the time you're in the car it's gone. Nobody's forgetting on purpose, there's just never a point in the day where writing it down is the obvious thing to do.

Which is why every fix that relies on you remembering has already failed. Your notes app. A spreadsheet in the car. A tally on the back of the invoice. They all work brilliantly for about three weeks.

The only version that holds is one where nobody has to do anything. The session gets counted because it happened, and you both see the same number without either of you asking.