The Scale …

Posted: October 8th, 2007 | Filed under: Baseball | 8 Comments »

About two weeks ago, I made one of my periodic, fist-pounding, “OK, this is just ridiculous, I HAVE to get in shape, I’m serious about it this time,” proclamations. These sorts of proclamations always inspire me to do three things:

1. Buy something absurdly expensive and pointless (bicycle, Bowflex-type machine, gym membership).

2. Begin some constrictive no-sugar, no-carb, no-fat, no-pasta, no-something diet that will often knock off as many as 10 pounds in two weeks and then make me so crazy with hunger that I will eat nothing but Quarter Pounders and PIzza Rolls until I have gained back the weight plus a bonus 10 pounds, just for playing.

3. Bring out The Scale.

Yes, I have had The Scale for most of my adult life. I don’t remember where I got it or when, but I am certain I have made at least five major moves with it. The Scale has been on more moving vans than Reggie Sanders. The Scale is white with a little red sticker on the corner. The sticker, over the years, has faded and frayed. But who hasn’t?

To get The Scale to work, you have to step on the sticker to “trigger” the machine, then, once The Scale has coughed and wheezed and set itself (this process can often take 10 minutes), step on. The Scale then thinks about things for a while, makes various calculations, makes some insulting comment about how I didn’t need to get the large Skyline 3-Way, and then takes a deep breath and finally gives me a red LED display of what it believes my approximate weight to be.

The key word is “approximate.” The great thing about The Scale is that just about every single time you step on, it will give you a different number. This is why I love The Scale. It isn’t just a scale, it’s a negotiator. My main form of exercise for the last 20 years has been stepping on and off the damn scale. I have been known to step on and off that thing 15 or 20 times before I have been satisfied with the number it gives me.

The pattern goes like this: “OK, let me step on The Scale here and, uh, no, that won’t get it. Come on Scale, I can’t live with myself at that weight. You can do better than that … Let’s try this again and, whoa, buddy, you’re going the wrong way … let’s step on again here and, yeah, OK, that’s a little better, but I think you can go a little lower than that … Let’s try this thing one more time and, no, give me that last number back …”

It has been like my own version of Let’s Make a Deal. I’m like, “Monty, that’s a pretty good weight, no doubt about it, that number there is significantly less than I actually weigh, but I’m going to step on The Scale one more time, I think I can lose about three pounds with one more step and … OH, that was a mistake. Wah wah wah wah.”

LET’S MAKE A DEAL INTERLUDE: I can’t remember if I mentioned this in my previous blog, but I loved Let’s Make a Deal. That show was way better than any of today’s game shows (I don’t know this to be a fact since I have never seen any of today’s game shows. I’ve seen enough “Deal or No Deal” commercials to believe that show sucks). The thing that pushed LMAD into legend is that part at the end of the show when Monty Hall would go into the audience, where for some reason that was never made entirely clear, people were dressed up like giant grapes or Little Bo Peep or underwear models or packages of Rice a Roni.

Then Monty would say, ”OK, I’ve got $50 for anybody in the audience who has a paperclip. Fifty dollars for the first person who can produce a paperclip.” And everyone would rifle through the purses or pockets to find a paperclip, and it was all good fun, you know, in that “Duke throwing coins into the crowd of peasants to see them fight each other” sort of way. The closest thing we have to this now is that minor league baseball promotion where they will blindfold some poor schmuck, place him/her behind home plate and announce that a diamond has been hidden in the grass somewhere nearby. That’s entertainment.

The best part, though, is that as “Let’s Make A Deal” began to become less popular, you would notice that the items Monty Hall asked for became more and more obscure. At first, sure, it was all about compacts or nickels from the year 1968. But as the show was going bankrupt, suddenly he’s saying, “OK, I’ve got $50 for anyone who can produce one of the original drafts of the Declaration of Independence. Come on, who has got one of the original drafts? Anyone? No? Well, how about this, $100 for a certified photograph of an alien spaceship. Remember, it has to be certified by the U.S. government. Come on, what do you people have in your purses anyway? One certified photo of, hey, I’ll take a certified vampire photo too … oh wait, sir, you say you have a Declaration of Independence, wait, let me see that, no sir, I’m afraid this is an original draft of the Magna Carta, no, that doesn’t count, sorry about that. OK, I’ve got $75 for anyone who can pull J.D. Salinger out …”

Back to The Scale. This time around, my absurdly expensive strategy for getting in shape involves working with a trainer. His name is David, and he’s extremely nice in that, “I could kill you with my off-hand ring finger if I wanted to” sort of way. No, he really is a good guy, and he has a lot of interesting thoughts about nutrition and health which I would share with you except I haven’t heard a word he has said because ever since I started working with him I have been in constant and severe pain. The other night I had this dream where I was in the Middle Ages and I was being stretched on the rack. And then I woke up, and wished I could go back to the dream.

Anyway,as part of my workout routine, I brought out The Scale. I was excited. And — this is heartbreaking — something happened. My scale broke. I can hardly write the words. First Eric Wedge starts Paul Byrd in Game 4, and now this. I stepped on The Scale, and it coughed and wheezed jut like normal, but then it died. I kept stomping on it, again and again, and it would not reset. I changed the battery … nothing.

Finally I shook it up, and dropped it, and shook it up again and it sort of came to life for a moment. I was thrilled. I stepped on it, and it gave me a weight that, frankly, was insulting. I stepped on it again, and it gave me THE SAME WEIGHT. I stepped on it a third time, and I hate to even say it — yeah same weight.

So I threw out The Scale. I have enough disappointments in my life.

– We’re going to try and do something live tonight with the Indians-Yankees game, so come on back.

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