My Bathroom Scale

tom-Bathroom-scale-800px“What did it say?” my wife asked.

“What did what say?” I asked in return.

“I heard you step on the bathroom scale.”

“Oh that…”

“So?”

“You never tell me what you weigh, so why should I tell you what I weigh?”

“That’s different,” she said.

“How so?”

“You never ask a woman what she weighs.”

“Why not?”

“You just don’t.”

“Then fair is fair, a woman should never ask a man what he weighs either.”

“That is just plain silly,” she said, “Now tell me, what did the scale say?”

“It said I am down three ounces.”

“And the pounds?” she asked.

I am not comfortable that she can keep secrets from me but I cannot keep secrets from her, especially about things that I am reluctant to divulge – even to myself.

I realize there is no such thing as a completely honest relationship. How could there be? We all tell little white lies and withholds crucial facts.  Everyone does this but it is not something we do out of malice, rather we do it out of love.

Face it, our little secrets are what make us more attractive to each other. Because nothing can be more alluring than what is left to the imagination. It is what holds the greatest power of all.

With me though, things work the other way around.

She keeps telling me I reveal too much.

“Don’t tuck your shirt in so tight,” she scolds.

“Why?” I ask.

“Because it make your belly look big.”

“My belly is big,” I tell her.

“But the world doesn’t need to know that,” she says.

So there you have it. I get nagged for revealing some things then nagged again for not revealing others.

Still, the wonderful thing about secrets is the joy in trying to uncover them – and I came very close to knowing how much she weighs once.

We were at her brother’s farm, walking along the drive that runs between his grain bins. I was trailing about twenty paces behind, gawking at the machinery, when she stopped suddenly and spun around to face me.

“Nice try,” she said.

That’s when I noticed.

Her left foot hovered over the truck scale.

The scale is a large steel platform that weighs grain trucks before and after they dump their load. It handles tens of thousands of pounds and reports what it finds on a big LED reader above the scale – and unlike the one in my bathroom, it is scrupulously honest and accurate to within a pound.

Author: Almost Iowa

www.almostiowa.com

40 thoughts on “My Bathroom Scale”

  1. Another wonderful post. I think most secrets in marriage are scary. Which doesn’t stop me from having a ton of secrets about myself. Let me rephrase. I think my husband having secrets is scary. Or passive-aggressive. Mine are normal and necessary. Ha!

  6. YUP! I knew where you were ending with that one. Although I’m southern CA raised (city life), when I was a kid, I had visited my grandfather. He was a North Dakota truck driver, hauled many things like Sunflower seeds. I often went with him to the scales. Hahahahah! I’ve always weighed more than my skinny hubby. I laugh at watching the warrior shows… the one with the teams and they have to climb up each other on the slanted wall. I’d end up killing everyone. 🙂

  7. Taking a break, eh? I dont remember giving you permission to take a break. I dont even think you have submitted the appropriate request forms to the proper authorities. COME BACK, GREG!!!

  9. I don’t bother with ’em; they’re just plain inconsistent. I can weigh myself one day and weigh *ahem* that much, but a week later it comes up with a different figure. I ask you!

  10. I used to have a scale that would weigh differently every time I stepped on it. The variance could be as much as five pounds, one way or the other. Finally, in the interests of accuracy and consistency, I bought a nice, new, digital scale. I still have no idea what I was thinking. I’d give anything to have that old wheel-of-fortune scale back. Now, I don’t have the freedom to say, “Oh, well. It’s never accurate, anyway.”

      1. And the funny thing about it is that people who know a weight in pounds freeze in panic if they have to translate it to pounds. As a confirmed number-phobe, I kind of enjoy that. It convinces me that, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, I really am part of the human race.

  14. LOL!!! Yesterday was supposed to be the first day of my new fast-two-days-a-week diet. I made it until 4:30 pm. before all hell broke loose.

  18. Easy for me. We keep separate scales. I happen to know, his measure lower than mine, an odd quirk that means I always loose weight when cleaning bathrooms.

  19. Having clearly ‘wintered well’ may I suggest you set the scales to ‘kilo’s’ that way you won’t have a blind clue what anyone weighs.

    1. Excellent idea.

      In cold climates, people intentionally put on weight for winter. In Alaska, the supermarkets used to bring in pallets of peanuts in late summer so people could start packing on the pounds. Always loved peanuts and beer.

      1. In our rather damp climate there’s a bird living down the road who has plainly decided to put on weight for life…big, big gal I tell you!

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