As mentioned in the previous post I've been going to the gym lately. Jiggly thighs and failed relationships should be the reason for this, but in truth it's much more complicated than that. Several months ago my Dad ended up in the hospital for a couple weeks with a "strange virus" that could have either been the result of "hemorrhoids or a heart attack." He was very vague about it, and I still don't see how the two are related, but he insists it's nothing. No big deal. This claim, coming from a man who avoided doctors and dentists for 35 consecutive years, means little to my mother and I. Prior to his heart's decision to all but die for fifteen days, he was a chain smoking, pop-tart eating, beer drinking glutton. He reveled in hostess products and took pride in his stomach's ability to double as a table. He had been skinny his whole life and the attitude he greeted weight gain with was beyond acceptance, it was glorified, he had earned it. He raised two children, he worked hard, he played basketball religiously for years, and now it was his turn to get fat; no damn doctor was going to tell him otherwise. The night his heart shit the bed he begrudgingly fought off the discomfort for hours before consulting a doctor, even after the frantic and concerned physician ordered him to call an ambulance, he packed a bag and drove himself. "I'm a man, I don't need an ambulance." To a feeble, weak-willed woman like myself, this seemed ludicrous, but I never mentioned that, even when they told us his heart was functioning at 20% that night. Truthfully, it had more to do with the fact that I had relied on this unhealthy slob with my entire existence, he was my blubber soaked rock, and I simply "can't handle it" as he delicately phrased the possibility that maybe, despite the evidence and convincing statistics, he was not as strong as it seemed. Nevertheless, he persevered and was released from the hospital having quit cigarettes cold-turkey, free to go home to my mother who had been worried sick about how much more alone time she was going to get to enjoy.
That's when life as we knew it ended. Whether it was my father's first time questioning his own mortality, or the fact that my mother had easily replaced him with a down comforter, he decided to change for the better. Cigarettes were not enough, he needed new everything. At the time I hadn't been living at home, but the changes were obvious. It started with the scale.
The scale has never been something my family valued. We've had the same one since my parents were first married, it's blue and wicker, yes, wicker. We have a wicker scale. Have you ever heard of such an insane thing? Patio furniture should be wicker, picnic baskets should be wicker, but a scale? Get real. It's sunbeam brand. They make blenders, bread and long, long ago when the world was a strange and unfamiliar place, they made blue wicker scales and my parents bought one. Anyway, at least since Jamie was born it has stayed in exactly one place: under a pile of shit in the upstairs closet across from the bathroom. Of course we know it's there, of course if we ever wanted to use it we could, but we don't. We keep it as a formality; all homes must have a scale. It stares as us when we're naked and vulnerable, reaching for a towel to dry off. It wants the affection we cannot give it, and it knows why. Even with the faulty dashes and it's uncanny ability to make you weigh less than you do, we all know it's a lie. Thus, we neglect it and let it collect dust in the closet of shame where it belongs.
That was until the aforementioned incident. Days after my father's return it showed up in all it's digital glory, a new scale, gleaming and white, with sickening accuracy; it's down to the fucking decimal. Determined to bury the memory of the old one, he proudly displayed it in the living room where it has faithfully stayed ever since. I ignored it at first, treated it like an end table, or a lamp, surely not as something meant to be stepped on. My father did not, he stood on it with every opportunity, shouted the numbers as they changed throughout the day, slowly gaining more and more confidence as they dwindled with every dog walk, or counted calorie. He saw results, and it was empowering. "242.7, Oh-ho-ho! 240.3, what's this!? 237.5 look out world!" I understood the concept, but chose to live by the "if I feel good, I'm doing good" philosophy, which revolves around principles that allow for heavy drinking and binge eating in the wee-hours of the morning. It also values the idea that if your jeans still fit, you're not in the red zone.
I read once, that curiosity gets guts going. The novel said that curiosity sets the spark for one to do something, but you must have guts for the long haul, guts have to withstand the danger ahead and tough it out for the act to be completed. I don't know if this is what the author meant, but as the days pressed forward, the scale seemed larger, and with it grew the curiosity about my gut. Finally, after every member of my family had developed a sick obsession with standing on it, so much so that one could not walk in the room without gravitating toward the grinning platform, I decided what could be the harm in trying? My father watched eagerly, his lips curling up in a smile only cult leaders and fanatics can muster, as I mounted the demon. Beep. Beep. Beep. The seconds ticked on. Beep. Beep. One final twitch from my dreaded enemy and the numbers were clear for all to see, down to the fucking decimal. By this time my family no longer had names, my dad was a 235, my mother a 119, and my sister a 122. If it changed throughout the day you could claim it, but the results were fairly set in stone. In that moment, I became a 135.6. Sure, that doesn't seem so bad, but inch for inch I was the fattest member of our family, next to my dad who only surpassed me with a hundred pound gap and he had been TRYING for years to be fat.
Forgive the phrase, but the Lavoie's ate that right up. A 135. A pudge nugget. A chubster. My dad, who had been lacking motivation since Mary's new diabetic friendly cooking was providing results sans exercise, found a new reason to lose. The hundred pound gap. It could only get smaller, and we both knew who was more likely to close it. If I had thought to sprint away in those final beeping moments I would have, but I didn't, and now I had to sprint for a new reason. We both knew what was about to happen.
The competition was on, may The Biggest Lavoie win.
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