What the Digital Goblin Made Me Do

In the corner sat our bathroom scale, beguiling me to diet. I removed everything from my person that might artificially increase my weight. Cell phone landed on the counter with my glasses. I shaved, clipped my fingernails, Q-tipped my ears, and grabbed a can of compressed air to guarantee a lint-free belly button.

It's a little known fact that digital scales were once mythical creatures. Not like those unicorns that poop rainbows, these were more akin to eastern European house goblins but have changed over the years. When a maiden from the Middle Ages stepped into Ye Ole Bathroom and onto her digital scale, it would announce, "One! One pound! Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha!" (I may be wrong, but I think Sesame Street may have based some of its popular characters on a digital scale.) The creature progressed to two pounds (Ah-ha-ha-ha), three, and so on until the entire weight was calculated. The average small child took approximately three days to weigh.

Technology has progressed since then, however. House goblins now come with the latest and fastest microcircuitry.  But they are still just as mean.

I stepped onto our goblin...er, scale and watched the numbers climb at stopwatch speed. After fifteen or twenty minutes, the readout finally settled down and I stretched my neck forward, eagerly awaiting my score.

“Oh, come on,” I said. “Nobody actually weighs that much. Maybe one of those hybrid cars with the big-giant batteries in the back, but not an actual person.”

The readout increased one pound.

I realized that I had a decision to make. Should I start dieting again, or not? It's not easy. Some studies say a compulsive eater's cravings are equivalent to the cravings of a heroin addict.

"For crying out loud, Mr. Heroin Addict, why don't you just have a salad?"

"I would, but my dealer laughs at me when I order a quarter gram of ranch dressing."

When I was 28 years old, I lost 120 pounds. Yes, that's a whole person or a very small kindergarten class. Things were different back then. I felt good. I had lots of energy. On sunny days, my wife almost never asked me to stand in front of her so she could have some shade.

I pace in the kitchen every night at nine o'clock.  Thirty minutes into my diet I've checked the cabinets six times, hoping a pizza had grown in one of them.

As everybody knows, it's simple. Just don't eat.

So, I consider it.