Dear Kid,

My scale and I are back on speaking terms.

You didn’t know we’d had a falling out? Let me tell you about my scale.

Regular scales wait until someone steps on them, then the scale calculates their weight. No personality, no taking liberties with facts, no diabolical plans.

Not so with my scale.

My scale is alive. It can’t move by itself, but it definitely has a mind of its own.

And it’s stubborn.

It can’t be coaxed into showing the weight I want to be. Which isn’t surprising, since most scales stick with reality rather than sharing my view of the world.

But my scale isn’t really interested in reality as much as it’s interested in messing with me.

My scale makes a daily decision before I get near it. During the night, the scale sits quietly thinking of ways to inflict its own personalized torture. Then it picks a number.

Not an entirely random number. It has never suggested I weigh 7,000 lbs. nor has it ever guessed 6 lbs. Pretty much everything in between is fair game.

Some days, it shows numbers relative close to what I expect to see. Other days, not so much. Let me tell you what happened two days ago.

I got on the scale and yelped. What? I gained 7 lbs. overnight? No way. Then I realized I was still holding a book. Ah. I put it down, reset the scale, and stepped back on. Same number.

Are. You. Kidding. Me?

That book weighed about 17 lbs. It was enormous. It was practically dictionary sized (remind me to explain what a dictionary is). It was the weight of the first 5 volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica (I’ll explain that one too).

The scale smirked ‘That’s your number for today.’

I stepped off the scale, walked down the hall, snuck back in (changing my cadence so the scale wouldn’t know it was me), and stepped on. Same number.

‘Told you.’

See what I mean?

I decided to snub my scale. I turned my back and walked out. The scale smiled. It knew it had won.

Fortunately, today it shows I’ve lost half a pound, so we’re back on speaking terms.

You have suggestions. I know. I can hear you thinking them.

Your first suggestion is that I get another scale. Not going to happen right now. I know how this scale thinks; I don’t really want to train a new scale. The scale you know is better and all that.

Your second suggestion is that I refrain from weighing myself every day. You might as well suggest I wear ugly shoes every day. Not going to happen in this decade. In fact, the reason I like my current diet is because it requires me to weigh myself every day.

The big problem (yes, I know it’s a big problem) is that my scale has control over me. It’s true, it’s unhealthy, and I have no plans to change my attitude or belief system. (Anyone who wants to tell me not to judge myself by my scale needn’t bother. I don’t judge myself by the scale. I judge my weight by my scale and I believe my weight is important. Without weight, gravity would have nothing to hold on to. I would just like gravity to have a little less to hold on to.)

Love, Mom

P.S. Please don’t try to explain that gravity causes weight. This is a blog about my scale and for purposes of this discussion, Oreos cause weight, not gravity.

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