Next Stop... Skynet

I've been going to my local gym for years. It's in the basement of the old Pasadena Star News building, in the area once occupied by the printing presses, when those things were two-story-tall monster machines. It's a pretty cool space, three-level and very open. But lately things have been kind of not cool.
   For most of the time I've been going I just hand over my gym ID card, the person behind the counter scans it, and I get to go in. Bada-bing, bada-boom, easy peasy lemon squeezy.
   No more. The company has gone to a fingerprint reader. You key in a ten-digit number - probably people use their phone number - and then scan your right index finger. Up until now I have steadfastly refused to let them scan my fingerprints, I stick with the ID card. Except now they're not using the ID cards. If you don't want to use the fingerprint scanner you have to fork over a driver's license and let them look it up that way.
   So now I'm on the horns of a dilemma. I don't want to use my driver's license - which is for driving not venue admission - yet I steadfastly object to letting a gym, of all businesses, take a record of my fingerprint so they can provide a service I've paid for. What the hell? The only reason they want my fingerprint is to make their extremely easy job - keeping the gate - even easier. Other than the company being lazy, there is absolutely no Goddamned reason they need a record of my fingerprints. AT. ALL. They're a fucking GYM!! I go there to sweat, not to create the next Manhattan Project. Biometric security should be the least of their concerns. How about working this hard to keep soap in the dispensers by the sink?
   I can hear you asking 'What's the big deal, Don? It's just a gym.'
   Which is my point exactly. It's just a gym. I don't want to come across as some crazy conspiracy theorist, but this is where the abrogation of our civil liberties starts. It's just a gym. So why do they want my fingerprint? That's the one definite personal identifier I can never change. And if I give it to them, they'll have a way to tie that biometric data to my name, my address, my phone number, and my credit records, all of which that gym also has.
   Where does it stop? How much personal privacy do I have to give up just keep my heart from giving out on me when I'm 70?
   If I want to keep working out there my choices now are down to two: fork over my driver's license every time, which is also none of their Goddamned business, or let them scan my fingerprint.
   I'm going for the driver's license. Fuckers.