Tuesday, June 29, 2010

A Modern Fable. Just Call Me Aesop.

Did I ever tell you the story about my scale? Probably not. Probably because its not really worth telling. But I'm going to tell it to you today to distract myself from the fact that the anxiety is creeping up on me again. Pill failure is imminent. I can tell because when I put on my clothes the other day, they felt horrible. They felt wrong and the material was irritating and nothing felt right touching my skin. And its not the clothes. Also I got a tiny, tiny little raise yesterday and instead of being, you know, happy, I spent the rest of the day kind of wanting to hide under my desk for no reason I could put my finger on. So...onto the fascinating story of my scale!

When I was in my teens I had a minor fling with anorexia. I'm not one of those people who struggles with it constantly, but it seems to be related to the OCD and pops up every once in a great while. Frankly, if I don't have a scale I have no problem with the anorexia (its the numbers. If I weigh 145** pounds then I feel compelled to make the scale say 140**. If it says 140, it needs to say 135.** And the number always has to end in a 5 or a 0, even though that kind of number only exists in Hollywood and romance novels). Anyway, not owning a scale seemed to take care of the problem so I hadn't owned a scale in over 10 years. But I had reached a point where medication was working for the worst of the anxiety and the OCD, and my husband was trying to gain weight (because he's evil and he has the metabolism of ...something with a ridiculously fast metabolism. His metabolism is on crack). And honestly, I was fine. It didn't bother me, I didn't even really feel compelled to get on the stupid thing. As long as my clothes fit, I'm good. That's pretty much my weight gauge. I don't want to have to buy an entire new wardrobe.

Until.

I had whooping cough a while back. The doctor put me on a mega-dose of steroids. I stood in the bathroom and watched my face become perfectly round. My stomach swelled, my thighs swelled, my ass grew so fast it was like going through puberty again. I kept knocking into things because it was so much bigger, and because it happened pretty much overnight. I kept my giant ass off the scale for a while, because I knew the actual number would probably kill me dead.

And then we had people over to watch the Superbowl. And one of those people was a really sweet, really blond, tiny little person who worked with my husband. For whatever reason (a reason he will regret until his DYING BREATH) he said, "Megan's just really big right now because of the medication they put her on. She's not really this fat." He is so, so lucky this story doesn't end with the words: and then I killed him. But at least I know now that I don't actually have death ray eyes, because seriously, he would be SO DEAD if I did. Very, very dead.

After they left, and after I was able to think coherent things that weren't "fucking skinny asshole....why...kill...stab...death argh" I stepped on the scale. And I cried like a giant, bawling baby at the number on that damn scale. And we kept the scale because then I was determined to use my OCD powers for good and be able to wear something that didn't have an elastic waist. But the number did not improve. I waged full scale war with that fucking scale. I swore at it, screamed at it, cried at it, exercised and ate grass clippings and rabbit food for a month, and the damn scale wouldn't budge. This was a problem because 1.) I wasn't losing weight and 2.) the number did not end in 5 or 0. So it was messing with me on multiple levels.

One day I had had enough and I threw the thing in the trash.

"Ha! I. Fucking. Win." I thought.

And then I went to the doctor and found out I had in fact lost 20 pounds, but the scale we had was crap and didn't give correct weights.

Moral of this story: Two fold, actually.

1. Scales are evil minions of Satan. Lying liars who sit upon thrones of lies, if you will.
2. Never. I mean NEVER tell another woman you think your wife is fat, and especially not in front of your wife. If she doesn't actually kill you you will wish she had.

Supersecret moral of the story: I clearly have no ability to judge my own appearance. You'd think I could tell I lost 20 pounds based on my appearance and my clothes. But the damn scale took over my brain and all I could see was that horrible, horrible way too high number.

**numbers not necessarily indicative of actual weights that I have weighed. I might weigh 200 pounds. Or 90 pounds. You don't know.

10 comments:

  1. I don't know a woman who doesn't have struggles with the scale. I hate that damn thing - granted, mine has always been in the reverse as I have a sweet tooth and indulge it on a fairly frequent basis.

    And by fairly frequent, I mean, generally, on the hour. Every hour.

    PS - how could you leave me hanging with the dirty joke?! I want to hear it. :)

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  2. The more I read your blog, the more I think we might actually be the same person.

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  3. Damn. 20lbs. I fight with my scale to try to knock of 5 and it never works!

    But yes, I agree that scales are evil.

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  4. I thought about getting anorexia once. Instead I ate 10 twinkies. Turns out I'm better at over eating. I had no idea that was a "condition" until five years ago. I figured I was just a fat ass. Now I can blame being overweight on my disease. Fatty win!

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  5. Oooh, Yvonne, yours sounds way better. I mean, anything that comes with Twinkies has to be better.

    Ashley: A lot of that was just the water weight steroids always put on me. It comes off pretty fast after the steroids are out of my system. The rest of it was because the steroids made me unable to stop shoving food in my face.

    Amber: I'm totally cool with that. You rock.

    No One: OK, I told you the joke in your comments, and you can't be mad at me because I so totally warned you.

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  6. I almost killed your husband for saying that. Just now. When I read it. Even though I don't know where you live. That's dangerous talk.

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  7. Trust me, he was punished. Severely, severely punished.

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  8. 1. God, men are thick.

    2. Scales are truly the harbingers of the apocalypse... I was just at the doctor's office today, and the nurse asked me to step on the scale. And when I did, I heard her mumble under her breath that it must be broken. Then she told me to remove my shoes and put my bag aside. After looking at the second reading, she ultimately decided to put a slash in the box for my weight instead of filling it in with the absurdly large number on the scale. So all in all, a great day.

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  9. I wrote a comment here earlier, and now it's gone, or I was just hallucinating again.

    Either way, I can't remember what I said, but you still make me laugh.

    Oh, yeah. Your husband is lucky he's married to you, because I would have killed him very, very dead.

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  10. I have the same issues with my scale... It's so annoying!

    I just became a follower, love your blog... I have an award for you on my blog :)

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