Temptation

What is it about a scale that we just can't walk past? Is it masochism? Do we just love the pain of knowing that eating half a family size bag of bite size snickers and a pint and a half of ice cream wasn't just a bad dream? Or is it that eternal hopefulness? Maybe the walk to the end of the block did really burn some calories? Whatever it is we just can't seem to do it. If there is a scale there, we must weigh ourselves. People just can't seem to help it! Part of my job as a med tech often includes regular checkup things like blood pressure and pulse. Today it included getting the weights on all the guys on that side. Trying to be efficient, I placed the scale just outside the med room so that I could weigh each guy as he came up to get his meds. The med room happens to be next to a hallway that many staff go through. Without fail, every staff who walked by the med room took the time to weigh themselves. Usually trying to hide the numbers so that no one else could save the data in their memory banks. Person after person I watched walk toward the med room, catch the small white object out of the corner of their eye, and gravitate toward it like a moth to a flame. Some of them didn't really look concerned with their weight. They just wanted to know. Others would step on, then with a look of dejection, step off again stating that unfortunately the scale was probably right. So this set me to wondering. What is it about the scale. The majority of us don't really want to know what we weigh because chances are it isn't what we want it to be. Whether we need to be on a diet and don't want the kind reminder of why, or we are on a diet and know that we haven't quite reached our goal. We just don't want to know. Yet we can't help it.
By the end of the morning I had weighed all of my guys and most of the staff (not all of them had ventured down the hallway) and went to put the scale away. I am happy to say that I avoided temptation today. I weigh what I weigh. Whatever that is. :)