We currently have three bathroom scales. In a related factoid, we have two bathrooms. Doing the math, you can see that we have a scale and a half for each bathroom. But since cutting one of the scales down the middle isn’t going to tell us we weigh any less, we’ve just decided to keep one scale (the old-fashioned mechanical one) in the half bath and then the other two (both digital) in the main upstairs bathroom.
The trouble with all three scales is that they work properly. You’d think we could have found at least one that would fib a little.
I bought a fairly basic digital scale two years ago, and I still don’t like it. Apparently I underestimated the power of a number I could fudge on because I was looking at a little metal needle that twitched back and forth as I stood on the mechanical scale. Now my weight is shown not only in actual numbers, but numbers with a decimal point. That’s just rude and unnecessary.
To make matters worse, apparently that wasn’t enough information for my husband, the engineer. A few weeks ago a newer, sleek, black digital scale showed up on the bathroom floor, right next to my already too-accurate white one. It’s from a company called Wyze... and it has an app.
Because, you know, it’s not bad enough you have to look at that digital number as you stand there naked and afraid each morning. Now you have to carry that number around with you on your smartphone. All day. Every day.
I haven’t stepped on that new scale yet, because I envision Wayne’s phone app stats being thrown off by someone about half his size standing on it. (“Wait, how did I lose that much weight just since this morning?”) Although… it seems as if the scale can accommodate more than one user, according to the photos that accompany the product’s Amazon page:
“Are you Chris? Because you weigh a LOT more than Chris! Just sayin’.”
“Are you Chris? If you’re not Chris, get the hell off my scale!”
“Are you Chris? Might wanna cut down on the Twinkies, Chris.”
And that “unlimited guest sharing” thing is just weird. What guest is gonna want you to carry around on your smartphone how much they weighed while they were visiting you?
I can’t even.
Then there’s this:
Heart rate tracking. Hmm. Pretty sure if I stand on that thing, my heart rate is gonna be clear off the charts. But whatever. Moving on…
But wait! There’s more!
Look at all the OTHER stuff this Wyze scale can tell you about yourself!
Honestly, that’s pretty much a list of all the stuff I don’t want to know about myself. I’d be more interested if it could tell me how nice I am, or how funny this blog post is, or how to sell a million copies of my latest book. I certainly don’t need to know my “visceral fat” number. And is that measured as a percentage or a flat number or some other way, like with a pie chart? Mmm, pie.
Where was I? Oh yeah.
At any rate, this scale seems to fill a deep inner need of my engineer husband: the need to have more numbers in his life. I can’t imagine needing most of those numbers… ever. When I stand on my own little digital scale, I’m already bombarded with a number higher than I can typically count without falling asleep. Add on the fact that my husband might then have access to all my numbers, and well, yeah… that ain’t happenin’.
I don’t care how sleek and shiny and beautiful that scale is, or how tempting phone apps can be. I’m never gonna Wyze up.
