Soapbox

Bantam Weight

This morning I had words with my bathroom scales.  I know, I know, but this was a long time coming, believe me.
We have one of those high-tech contraptions where you can program in things like your age, height,  frequency and intensity of exercise, astrological sign and it sends a little zap of electricity through you feet and tells you how much of your weight is fat versus muscles, bone, etc.
Are you kidding me?

Unless you’re trying to get NASA to put you on the next shuttle crew, why would anyone want to know something like that?  I don’t think that a household appliance should be given that much information and power over me.
Next thing you know, it’ll be perusing my credit card statement, critiqueing my poetry and denying me access to the freezer after 10 PM “for my own good.” When I get on the scale in the morning I simply want it to tell me my current weight- in pounds, please,  and no mouthing off.

Today it tried to tell me that I gained over 2 pounds in a day.
Yeah, right.
So I got off and on again. I mean,  I had fruit for lunch yesterday.

    I’m sorry… it said, your total mass in earth-normal gravity  has increased 2.4 lbs since yesterday morning. And is that a new wrinkle between your eyebrows?
Which of course is nuts.

    “No f**king way I informed it. "I had a salad with lite dressing at dinner." and got off and on again.

    Two point four-two pounds, actually: I was rounding down to be kind. And there’s no need for profanity.
    “Listen, wise-ass…” I said, climbing off and on again, "it's not my fault that at my age, my metabolism has just about shut down and even air is fattening!'

    Ah yes, speaking of asses, yours seems to be getting just a little closer to sea-level every day, doesn’t it?
    “I’ve had about enough out of you!”

    Well don’t kill the messenger, lady. And by the way, you can keep getting on and off all day and it won’t change anything…unless you literally do it all day,  which might actually burn off one potato chip…
And then I heard it snicker.

Yeah, so I think I've cleaned up all the little bits of broken spring and plastic now- I worked up a bit of a sweat doing it too, which I’m sure made me lose some weight. Probably about 2.4 pounds
And if it didn’t, who’s to say differently?
Rest assured, the next time I want to know how much I weigh, I’ll ask my toaster oven.