Day 12, Buying a scale.

Well, it's been almost two weeks and I can see a big difference in my belly. I'm not saying I was fat before, but there were the beginnings of love handles and a little doughiness in the navel and chest areas. So I thought it would be a good time to check my weight, because the dietary guidelines change depending on how much you weigh, so if I dropped weight I might cut some grams from the daily routine.

I happened to know my weight when I started this project, because I was in an inn in Kyoto that had a scale in the hot-spring room. It was 65 kilos, or 143 pounds.

But I don't have a scale in my apartment and indeed have never owned or used a scale since I was a wrestler in high school (my freshman year I wrestled in the 103 pound division! By my senior year I was up to 119. Tiny, huh!) So I wanted to buy a scale.

I went to the local Don Quixote (a weird ass store which I describe in more detail here) to get a simple scale that would, uh, tell me how much I weigh. Little did I know, that kind of scale went out years ago. Now they're all Star Trek electronic gizmos with these sensor pad things and digital read-outs that tell you your body mass index, with all these buttons and stuff, ranging from 30 to 200 dollars. I couldn't find any that just told you how much you weigh. My budget was 10 dollars. I was about to give up, but I managed to find one of Don Quixote's fine young employees.

(translated from Japanese)
"Do you have any scales that, uh, tell you how much you weigh?"
He starts to gesture to the rack of electronic scales, but I interrupt.
"I saw those, but, I just want to know my weight."
"Just your weight?" he asks, as if this was a request he had never considered.
"Yeah, you know, like, uh, how much I weigh, like 60 kilos, 50 kilos..."
"Oh, I see. Just one like that." He takes me around a corner near the hair irons.

And so, here it is, the only scale in this megastore that I could find that tells you, uh, how much you weigh.Price, $9.97. Hell, it works. And my weight, 63 kilos (138 pounds). Plus, now I will often be reminded that Daytime means Playtime.

The Pooh thing is just a sticker that I could peel off if I wanted, but, I dunno, I kind of like it.