Dave's Scale

At some point in the past year or so that Dave has slowly been moving in with us, a scale arrived. I’m not sure if it first came during his weekend stays early in the fall of 2006, or if it arrived as the situation turned more permanent this past summer. Regardless, at some point, a scale arrived in his back bedroom.

We didn’t first hear or know about this scale until a week and a half ago when Dave come into the kitchen and announced that his scale told him he has dropped X% of body fat.

“Wow, congratulations!” Ted stated.

My response was a bit more direct. “You have a scale?”

I have never owned a bathroom scale, and the only time I allow my eyes to fall on any sort of weight range for myself are on the few doctor’s visits over the course of the years. In high school, we had a bathroom scale—the kind where the dial has to be leveled out from time to time for a pure reading and a person only had to rock back and forth to drop a pound or two from the dial. The best April Fools’ joke was to reset the scale so it started out 5 or 10 pounds below or above zero, substantially adding or subtracting from an individual’s weight. The only problem with that is I often forgot I did that, so I ended up being the receiver of my own joke most of the time.

Dave gingerly informed me I could use his scale…obviously uncertain about how the statement could have been twisted and misinterpreted by the sensitive female psyche. So after dinner that night, I trudged upstairs quietly and pulled the scale from the back bedroom and into the bathroom.

What looked up at me from the floor was not the old scale I had been used to. This scale, with its screen not much smaller than most computer monitors, had more buttons and symbols and formulas on it than I had ever seen. In one of the most humbling experiences of my still-young life, I called down to Dave and asked him how it worked.

“You just step on it.” Was his response, delivered in the “duh” way only a 17-year-old boy can.

I kicked off my slippers and slid onto the scale, rocking back and forth until I felt I was standing evenly on the scale, balancing my weight effectively for a true reading. Then I quietly slid off the scale, returned it to the room, and slunk back downstairs, informing Ted and Dave that I was fat and dinner was heavy. “Did you wear those?” Ted asked, eyeing at my comfortable layers of pajama pants and sweatshirts. “Well, yeah…” I replied. How much can a sweatshirt weigh, anyway?

The next day, after my run and before dinner, I pulled the scale back out. The shower was running and I had decided, just before hopping in, that I should weigh myself just to see what may have transpired over the past 24 hours. “I lost seven pounds!” I yelled downstairs, and threw a robe on to inform the boys face to face that I wasn’t fat after all and the dinner, and maybe the cozy clothes, did attribute to the previous reading.

This has unleashed a monster. I am now obsessed with my body’s ability to fluctuate by a 1.5-2 pounds. I wake up in the morning—I weigh myself. I run—I weigh myself. I eat dinner—I weigh myself. I shower—I weigh myself. I dry my hair—I weigh myself. I am as fascinated by a 2-pound weight gain as I am by a 2-pound weight loss.

I think I should probably get myself on a regular routine (as in maybe once a week and not once every half hour) of weighing myself and tracking a more accurate reading system. But for now, I am having a good time seeing how much weight I gain from drinking three glasses of water and then how much I lose again by peeing it out.