There are few things in the house as nasty as the bathroom scales. They sit there on the floor saying nothing, pretending to be useful, when really they are just waiting to ruin your morning.
You never stand on them at night. Nobody in their right mind does that. At night you are carrying the full weight of the day. Dinner, cups of tea, maybe a biscuit or two, and all the little things you ate while standing at the fridge pretending you were only looking.
No, the scales are for the morning. First thing. Before breakfast. Before tea. Ideally before your body has realised it is awake.
You step on gently, because there is a foolish part of you that thinks a gentle approach might produce a kinder result. You hold your breath, because air must weigh something. Then you look down.
Same as yesterday.
Not an ounce gone.
This is hard to accept, especially when the day before you had behaved like a saint. You had eaten only twice, and one of those meals was more of a rumour than a meal. You had walked until your smartwatch congratulated you, which is always annoying. It lights up as if you have climbed Everest, when in fact you have walked round the block a few times trying not to look in people’s windows.
“Goal achieved,” it says.
What goal? Not dying on the footpath?
Still, you go to bed pleased with yourself. You imagine the fat quietly leaving during the night, perhaps by some process known only to slim people and personal trainers.
But no. The scales don’t care. Same weight.
So the next day you get serious. Eggs. That’s the answer. Eggs and no carbohydrates. Bread is gone. Potatoes are gone. Pasta is gone. Basically, everything that makes life bearable is gone.
You eat boiled eggs. Scrambled eggs. Eggs with the sad look of food that knows it is not toast.
By evening, you are not so much hungry as offended. You watch other people eating normal food and begin to resent them. Even the dog looks like he has a better diet.
Still, you hold firm. No biscuits. No crisps. No slice of bread “just to settle the stomach,” which is a phrase that has excused many crimes in Irish kitchens.
Next morning, back to the scales.
Same weight.
At this stage you start investigating. Maybe the scales are on a bad tile. You move them six inches to the left. Same result. You move them back. Same result. You take the battery out and put it in again, because that is the full extent of modern technical repair.
Same result.
Then comes the lasagna.
It is in the fridge, looking harmless. Not a big family lasagna. Just a modest little thing from the supermarket with “350 calories” written on the front. Three hundred and fifty calories. That is nearly a salad.
You tell yourself you will eat half. Then you remember life is short and half a lasagna is a ridiculous insult to the person who invented lasagna.
So you eat the lot.
And it is beautiful. Pasta, sauce, cheese, comfort, happiness. For ten minutes, you are at peace with the world.
The next morning, you approach the scales with some nervousness, but also with a solid legal argument. It was only 350 calories. It said so on the packet. In print. Surely that has to stand for something.
You step on.
Two pounds up.
Two pounds.
How can a 300-gram lasagna add two pounds to a person overnight? That is not science. That is black magic. Somewhere inside the body there must be a small office where bitter little men in brown cardigans see lasagna arriving and say, “Right lads, emergency storage.”
It makes no sense. You can walk miles, eat eggs, drink water, refuse biscuits, and nothing happens. Then you eat one innocent lasagna and wake up carrying the weight of a small terrier.
So now the scales remain in the bathroom, but the trust is gone. They are not a health device. They are a bad-news machine with a digital screen.
And yet tomorrow morning you will stand on them again.
First thing.
Before breakfast.
Holding your breath.
