Scale Model

Schadenfreude Alert:  If you have weight issues, body dysmorphia, or just plain scale-phobia, please skip this one.

I come from a thin family.  My mother, father and brother are all thin.  And I was a very picky eater as a kid.  Meat, fat, dark meat chicken and turkey, milk, water, butter, cheese, eggs, ham, bacon, pork, fish, seafood, most fruits, and every vegetable except canned corn- the list of things I wouldn’t touch was endless.

I found eating to be a chore and a bore.  I just didn’t get it.  In fact, I nicknamed my maternal grandmother “Chowhound” because she loved to put it away, and teased her because I didn’t share her preoccupation with the dinner table.  I didn’t even like ice cream.  (My father would tease me and say that this was un-American.)

But back then being skinny was awful.  I was forced to be the top of the pyramid in gym class.  I was “sacrificed to the water gods” i.e. thrown into a rain puddle on the playground, and I was always the target of big boys aiming dead at me as they ran full bore into my wrists during Red Rover at recess.

I couldn’t wear sleeveless dresses and I was the last girl to get a bra.  At junior high slumber parties, I would have to sneak into the bathroom to change so that all the other giggling girls wouldn’t see that I still wore an undershirt.  (I would often run into Marilyn already changing in there. She was the poor gal in seventh grade who wore a C cup and her life was miserable, too.)

And I still can remember how humiliated I felt when I overheard a teenaged would be Lochinvar refuse to dance with me at Mrs. Woolson’s “On to New Trier” dancing school class.  “That board?” he snorted.  “Never!” (One of my gal pals also overheard this indictment and  said “Maybe he thought you looked bored” to cheer me up.  But neither of us was fooled.)

And when The Beach Boys had a big hit with “409,” the joke that went around school was that it was about Ellen Roffe’s measurements.  Thinness was the bane of my childhood existence, and if anyone ever told me that some day it would be something to be admired, I NEVER would have believed them.

But don’t get me wrong.  I know what it’s like to be overweight.  I met Bill after eating my way around Italy for a year and although I wasn’t fat, I sure wasn’t skinny any more.  The Italians I met were always calling me “magra,” (thin) and making it their special business to give me second helpings of panna montata– whipped cream- and other forbidden fruits all the time.

And when we got married all bets were off.  He plied me with food.  “We’re happy and we’re celebrating,” he used to say as he reached for the Lido cookies.

And did we ever.  You would have gotten fat too if you went to Gene and Georgetti’s twice a week and your dinner date ordered an entree- Chicken Joe- for you, an entree- a steak- for himself, and a third entree- linguini with white clam sauce- for the table.  And heavy on the cottage fries, please.

We went to Eli’s The Place for Steak all the time. (Now closed.  Management’s favorite mantra was “Can I get that out of your way?”- whether you were finished or not.  They were ruthlessly dedicated to turning tables at that joint, remember?)  Bill had been introduced by the girl he dated before me to the decadent delight of mixing chocolate mousse with their cheesecake, and he loved forcing this icky concoction down me like a Strausbourg goose.

We feasted at the Peking Duckling House on Howard. (Great.  Gone. Too bad.)  Nakanoya in Lincoln Park. (Ditto.)  Maxim’s- where I loved their Veal Prince Orloff.  (Also au revoir.)  We took his motorcycle to Superdawg, hit Beinlich’s all the time, and were on a first name basis with the maitres d’ at Crickets, (Jean Pierre) Chasen’s (Julius) and Le Titi de Paris (Christian.)

And in between restaurant visits, I cooked.  I was anxious to show off my new-found Italian culinary skills to my new-found husband, and I enthusiastically threw myself into creating a gourmet meal every night we ate at home.

After a couple of years of this binge, I was fat.  I couldn’t believe it, but the mirror- and the fact that I was now wearing Bill’s jeans after Natasha was born- were proofs positive.  But before I could go on a diet, I got sick during my pregnancy with Nick and lost twenty-five pounds.  (All due to gall stones. Which they removed- along with my gall bladder.)

And from my first baby steps down the hospital hall in search of a scale post-cholecystectomy, I have weighed myself religiously ever since.  I never wanted to be fat again.  It wasn’t a hard choice for me.  I have never found a brownie that tasted as good as a Lagerfeld suit looked.

The scale serves as my first line of defense.  It’s like balancing your checkbook.  The proof is there- incontrovertible- and you can’t argue with numbers.  I love my scales and have had several madly co-dependent relationships with them.

I had an awesome travel scale.  It was perfect- lightweight, easy to pack, and no matter how much I slipped up at the Apple Pan or Fatburger or The Teepee or Las Casuelas or Columbia, the needle never moved.  The scale seemed to understand that I was on vacation and deserved a break.

That wonderful scale made many a trip with me- until Bill carelessly left it under a pile of towels at the Grand Bay Hotel in Coconut Grove.  I made frantic call after call to try and retrieve it but they wouldn’t hand it over.  And I could never find another one to take its place.  After its loss, I always had to seek out the nearest spa on the hotel premises for my daily away-from-home weigh-in.

Irony Alert: I read that they just blew up the posh Grand Bay Hotel to make way for a new condo development.  I have had my revenge on those scale-swiping bastards!

Before I ever went to Europe I learned my weight in kili.  I knew exactly how many signalled “Pericoloso!”- “Danger!”- and when to hold back on the pasta at Harry’s Bar.  I was always on guard. When we boarded the Sea Goddess years ago, I was greeted by the entire staff who had mustered out to meet me.  I thought it was part of their legendary royal treatment- until they assured me that it wasn’t.

“Our clientele usually pre-orders Beluga and Dom,” the purser told me.  “We wanted to see who ordered the popcorn and the Diet Coke.  No one in the history of the Sea Goddess has ever requested that before. We just had to see who you were.”

And don’t talk to me about doctors’ scales.  Oooh.  I get excited.  My very favorites.  I have two- although one is still living in my ex co-op.  I bought it at Conney’s Pharmacy in Winnetka thirty-some years ago and it sure would come in handy now that I have started a new campaign to get back into a slinky Azzedine Alaia number (is there any other kind?) from a few seasons back.  But I’m up for it.  After all, who’s the boss around here?  Food or me?

But as I started on my quest for my “lucky number,” my Lauren Bacall-no-nonsense girlfriend Joan drily injected a note of caution into my enthusiastic diet proceedings.

“Careful, my dear.  Don’t lose too much.  At your age, it’s either your face or your derriere.  You simply can not afford it.  Trust me.”

Hey, I never said wrinkles and gray hair didn’t run in the family, did I?

Just don’t look at my brother.  He doesn’t have either one.  I got landed with both of them.

Even if you own the perfect scale, Life doesn’t always balance out, I guess.