Weighers Gonna Weigh

This is Val's Betrayer:

This is the scale my doctor's nurse chose to believe over her tall weights-sliding-on-a-balance scale. You know. Because the spring scale is so much more accurate. That's why doctors' offices use them. NOT.

Here's the attitude my spring scale has been giving me lately. Even though I have thoughtfully provided him with a new 9-volt battery, just in case he wasn't feeling up to snuff.

Obviously, something is amiss. Perhaps WW is simply worn out, like the hinge on Val's hard case that carries her spectacles to and from school, after excessive openings and closings. The weight of a single Val leg should not be enough to cause WW to malfunction. Still. We take his word over the scale in the medical office.

Val is a robust, Rubenesque specimen of womanhood (DO NOT picture Val with her clothes off!), with a hearty appetite. Which does not mean her meal plan is akin to that of a circus fat lady attempting to maintain her moneymaking physique. She is not living high on the hog in her dark basement lair, squeegeeing gas station chicken grease off her chin. In fact, round about the time school started, Val cut back on her caloric intake. Which is not to say that she survives on arugula and alfalfa sprouts, or adheres to the supermodel regimen of Diet Coke and TicTacs. She is not one of those sprite-like women with a pixie haircut, who sit on the kindergarten chairs at parent teacher conferences, with ample room left over on the side of each tennis-ball-sized buttock, and occasionally indulge in a meal of less food than it takes to keep a hummingbird alive, then complain about their lack of self-control at such a feast.

No, Val merely chose lesser evils as presented. Such as Captain D's grilled tilapia or lemon pepper whitefish with broccoli and slaw (SLAW! SLAW! DON'T FORGET THE SLAW!), rather than the deep-fried plank with cracklin's and fries and hush puppies. At home, a bowl of broccoli, cauliflower, and baby carrots with a slice of Velveeta on top, rather than a side dish of macaroni and cheese, Stove Top Stuffing, garlic Texas Toast. A section of Walmart big sandwich for school lunch, but with the bulk of the bread scraped out for a dog treat, leaving just the crust over the meat. Breakfast. Lunch. Dinner. No nighttime snacks. Val is not one to make sacrifices and follow some cockamamie plan like her lunch companions, who relapse within a month back to their old habits. So Val just kept on with regular food, and trimmed the fat. So to speak. Cut out her one can of regular Coke each night. That alone would account for 2.8 pounds lost.

Val's Betrayer would have her believe that in ten weeks, she lost 11 pounds. Or two. Or six. She never knew what might pop up on that dial. But as of late, for a couple weeks, it showed 11 pounds lost. Not the 25 pounds lost that the doctor's scale showed. Of course, today it showed another two pounds down.

I have come to the conclusion that Val's Betrayer cannot be trusted. But neither can the doctor's scale. Or nurse.