The scale -- and yes, I'm going to name names here -- is a TAYLOR "Body Fat Analyzer and Scale," and it gives the impression of being quite modern and advanced, with its digital display and numerous body-fat-analysis-related buttons. It took me some time to figure out how to get it to do a simple weighing. If you stand on it nothing happens, except a few dots cross the digital display slowly. The is what we software developers call the "thinking" display; it's to convey the idea that the machine is pondering the solution to your problem. After about five seconds of "thinking" the machine displays your weight, down to THE NEAREST TENTH OF A POUND! (This detail is important later in the story.)
The reason it took me so long to figure out how to weigh myself on the scale was because I would get off of it far sooner than the five seconds required for it to figure out my weight, as all my experience had been with manual scales that give you a reading after a second.
Oh, one more thing I want to mention about the five second pause, and here I am revealing one of the dark secrets of the software industry: Sometimes, to give the appearance of greater value in a piece of software or an electronic device, a fake pause is programmed into it while it is doing its reckoning. For example, if you ask the machine a complicated question and it figures out the answer in a tenth of a second and then displays that answer, you might not believe that it did enough "work" for the amount of money you paid for it. So, after the computer has found the answer after a tenth of a second, the programmer makes the machine wait a few extra seconds, to give the appearance to the user that they are getting their money's worth from the machine. I have no proof that the Taylor was engaged in one of these fake pauses, but I wouldn't put it past the designers of that fine product. But this is a long and tedious digression...
The last time I weighed myself was about four weeks ago. The Taylor chugged for the required five seconds then popped up the answer: 206.3 (pounds, not kilos; and for all my two readers out there trying to decide whether this means I'm a fat ass, I'm not going to state my height, so you just don't know, I might be a svelte 6' 8").
Since that time I haven't change my consumption patterns (unhealthy) or my exercise regimen (typing). So when I decided to weigh myself last night I expected that I would hold steady, which would have been a victory, or gained a few pounds. But the scale showed . . .
193.6
Maybe most people in the same situation would have said, "Woo hoo!" and enjoyed the moment. I am not like that, and I instantly catastrophized. No one loses 13 pounds in 4 weeks doing nothing. I don't believe I have hypochondriac tendencies, and I usually give health problems a few weeks to ferment to see whether they'll just take care of themselves. But even I knew that sudden weight loss was not a symptom to ignore.
I looked at my body and it looked just as pudgy as always, so I was puzzled where the weight went. I tried to imagine what grave illness could cause me to lose weight without showing it. Very unadvisedly, I went to Webmd.com at 11:00 at night (note: never go to a health web site at night, or if you've had a few drinks, or both). I typed in "sudden weight loss" and the first article that came up was "The Top 6 Symptoms That You Simply Can't Ignore!!!!," and of course number 1 was "Sudden Weight Loss." I read a few of the horrible conditions that could cause this, then I got off the computer.
I went to bed and lay there thinking all sorts of horrid thoughts about my imminent demise, about how it would affect my loved ones, what they would do without me, etc. etc. etc. I eventually fell asleep.
When I woke up the next morning I had forgotten about the catastrophe, but after a minute it all came back to me. I went to the bathroom scale to see whether I was still dying. I stood on the scale for 5 seconds, and then it read:
203.4!
Yup, either I regained ten pounds overnight, or the scale, the one that claimed to be accurate to the nearest tenth of a pound, was WAY FUCKING WRONG! I of course blamed the scale.
I started cursing the Chinese, since everything in the modern American world is made by them, but when I flipped over the scale I saw (after 14-step instructions describing how to use the body fat analysis functions):
Taylor Precision Proudcts, L.P.
2220 Entrada Del Sol
Las Cruces, New Mexico 88001
www.taylorusa.com
MADE TO OUR EXACT SPECIFICATIONS IN CHINA
So I can't blame the Chinese, they were just following the instructions of good old American engineers.
Moral: Never let any piece of electronics send you into a dark night of the soul. Only let a human do that to you.
2 comments:
Oh, i wish i had known you were going through such trauma! I could have told you to always weigh twice! (and a third time if they are wildly divergent...)
Moral of the comment:
Turn toward your human safety net(s) when your soul is in despair. They will help direct you to the correct measure.
Yogi E.
I think the "delay" in the scale spitting your weight at you is authentic. It takes a moment to stabilize the movement and get a stable read.
Heed the Yogi: anybody who knows what they're doing weighs everything three times!
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