HAL is helping me lose weight, I think!

I was born in 1949. Since that time, the world has seen the introduction of the hydrogen bomb, the VCR, TIVO, cellular telephones, organ transplants and the computer. As I age, I have greater difficulty staying current with the changes in technology.

The week  between Christmas and New Year’s last year, a lady that I work with  mentioned to me as we pecked at our lunch salads that she wanted to get serious about losing weight in 2008. I expressed a similar goal for myself. I decided to buy us a scale and have us weight in weekly as a way of encouraging us on in our diets. While I could have gone to Target to buy a scale, out of idle curiosity, I checked out what was available from Amazon. com.

I was fortunate.   I found a very reasonably priced, high tech  scale on Amazon.com. When we opened the box, there were a few directions for setting the scale up and decisions to make as to whether the weight would be shown in kilograms or pounds. Obviously, we opted for pounds. Right then, I wondered if I just should have gone to Target instead. When I was younger, scales didn’t come with instructions.

The first couple of times that we did our weekly weigh ins, the scale worked just fine. Last week, it showed her weight without difficulty. But when I stood on the scale, I kept getting an error message. I finally gave up trying last week, remembering back in the prehistoric days of my youth that scales didn’t send us error messages.

This week, she was able to weigh herself with no difficulty. Just like last week, I kept getting an error message. That was very frustrating to me to put it mildly.

Having learned to deal with high technology, I looked for a number to call.  She called, because I’m a klutz with tech support. The service person really didn’t say much except that she told us  to be very, very still while the scale is processing.

Once we got off the phone, I tried it again and it didn’t work again. The flashing error message returned.

Being stubborn, I came up with the brilliant idea of moving the scale next to a bookcase, so I could lean on the bookcase while the scale was processing the data. HOME RUN!  It worked!

I’m feeling really old right now, because I can remember low tech bathroom scales where people wiggled, jiggled and spoke loudly during the weighing process in hopes of keeping the final number down. They never received error messages from their scales. No those inferior low tech scales just told them their weight. Usually the person said naughty things about the scale’s accuracy and that was that.

I’m starting to wonder if  my problem with the scale is symptomatic of a larger problem. Maybe HAL 9000 has taken over our bathrooms.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001:_A_Space_Odyssey_%28film%29 

That is something to think about tonight before you drift off to sleep. Good night, Dave. Sweet dreams.