The Inch of Nazi Inconsistency

Those who’ve been reading for a while know about the Nazi Scales. For the newbies, I have a set of Nazi weighing scales. They have no regard for human beings or anything other than their own will, essentially, from which I have spun the theory that the spirt of dead Nazis have been reincarnated as the scales of fat people like me, and face an eternity of being continually trodden on – more or less to see how they like it.

It will come as no surprise to any seasoned Disappearer that while the official weigh-ins are on Tuesday mornings, since starting, I’ve been weighing with the regularity and the neurosis, according to my wife, ‘of a teenage Valley Girl cheerleader.’ I tend to respond with a ‘Like, y’know, whatever…totally.’

At the moment, I weigh in the morning, any time anything significant happens, pre-bike and post-bike (yes, really – I’m getting readings of the weight of the sweat I lose during an hour’s biking. My wife may have a point – she usually does).

And while I’m taking none of those readings at all seriously, because a) if I did, I’d be even madder than I am, and b) taking too much notice of the ‘unofficial’ weigh-ins feels like a devaluation of the ‘official’ one, they do at least help me get back into the swing of this thing, by dividing whatever the result is between Tuesdays into logical, noticeable slices of x=y, ‘this has been today’s activity=this has been today’s result.’

Except.

Except last night I uncovered an inch of Nazi inconsistency.

An inch of Nazi inconsistency that undoes any certainty I might have had.

You might want to put on your geek-protection gear now, this is where it gets double extra sad.

I keep the Nazi Scales in my office, mostly because the flat is smallish and there’s not really anywhere else for them to go. That means I drag them into the bathroom whenever I use them, and put them on the only patch of floor on that level that doesn’t have carpet or mats.

Last night, doing my pre- and post-biking weigh-ins, it didn’t for a moment escape my notice that, having biked for an hour, sweated like a – well, like a fat, chronically out-of-shape guy who’d biked for an hour – and got on the scales, I’d somehow managed to miraculously put on two and a half pounds. No water had been taken in (Side-bar: happened to mention, on getting off the bike, that I was really thirsty. “Did you not have water?” asked d. “Well, erm, yes, I did,” I admitted, “but-” “But you didn’t want the water-weight! Oh my god, you little freakboy!” she (fortunately) laughed). So the act of exercising had caused me to put on weight. Quite a lot of weight.

“What the hell, you Nazi bastards?” I muttered. Then I noticed something that I’d never noticed before. I noticed the inch of Nazi inconsistency.

Stick with me – d couldn’t understand this one till I acted it out for her and she was standing there.

Imagine a bathroom. Its door opens inward, and there’s a space about the size of a set of Nazi Scales, plus an inch, at the beginning of the room, beyond which, there’s a mat. Where the door swings inward, it’s roughly that inch distant from the mat. That means there are two possible markers for where you put the top of the Nazi Scales when you lay them down – in line with the swung-open door, or at the edge of the mat.

As I looked at them, I saw the heavy-weighing scales were on the edge of the mat.

I narrowed my eyes at them. Was that where I usually put them? Or did I usually put them in line with the door?

I dragged them in line with the door, and sure enough, lost 2.5 pounds.

“Balls,” I said, with feeling.

Because – and if you have any hint of compulsion or obsession in your personality, you’ll know why this was a hellish realisation – I couldn’t remember where I’d put them when I weighed before biking. What’s significantly worse than that, I couldn’t remember where I’d put them for my official weigh-in on Tuesday. So Was I really 18st 3 when I began this quest? Or was I really 18st 5.5, with some weight-absorbing floorboards? What was ultimately worst of all though, did that mean I’d weighed with them in the heavy position when I came home from London and saw 18st 5, only to shift them unconsciously to the light position for the launch weigh-in, giving myself credit for a miraculous 2.5 pound loss that was simply down to the inch of Nazi inconsistency?

Not knowing is hell, quite frankly. I know it shouldn’t bother me, but it does on every conceivable level. Of course, the aim is ever downward, and I’m hoping that come Tuesday I’ll be able to report a change in figure irrespective of position, to be back in the 18 stone territory, even weighing in the heavy position. But that said, there’s no way I can continue weighing twice each time I do it, or the obsessive and compulsive sides of my nature will really begin to cohabitate as some kind of obsessive compulsion, from which it’s only a journey to not being able to leave the house without weighing at least six times or somesuch hellish nonsense.

So – for future reference, and irrespective of any inadvertent prior measurement inaccuracies, the official position of the Nazi Scales will now forever be in line with the door, not the mat. Screw it, it might give me a 2.5 pound advantage, but who doesn’t need an advantage like that in their Disappearing lives, for the simple joy of motivation, if nothing else?

I’m going to try to put it out of my mind now, I really am.

Despite the shimmering, overlapping realities.

Really.

Trying…