There exists in almost every American home an insidious mechanism that can destroy every person in the house. It remains silent waiting for its chance to create havoc and distrust. In families it is not uncommon for some members to praise it and others to curse its existence.
Those who use it often feel betrayed, as if the mechanism had a real life of its own and could think of ways to destroy the peace of mind of those who come within its sphere. They come with hope and often leave in despair. And yet they return to it day after day as if the new dawn will bring a change in their relationship and all will be well again.
Those who refuse to fall under its sway can pass it by with an ease that would make a circus fire eater envious. It calls to them but they do not answer. They say they distrust it. That they can live their lives perfectly well without it. There are simpler ways to get what it promises to provide.
It must be true since in less sophisticate countries it rarely appears. In fact it would be completely unneeded in many countries where every day brings challenges to life itself. When a bowl of rice can bring the promise of survival, the mechanism is preposterous. In fact it would be totally misunderstood. It would be incomprehensible to those living in the day-to-day challenge for existence to even believe that the mechanism is used elsewhere.
But here in America it has wormed its way in to most homes. It can turn husband against wife and parent against child. Where couples live together without having made their way down the aisle it can part young lovers in a way that they never would have thought possible before it showed its tempting face. “Listen to me,” it will say to one. To the other who hears it revelations from their loved one they will believe deceit. “That can not be,” they shout. “But it is the truth, after all the mechanism can’t lie,” comes the reply. “If it can’t lie then you must be.” And so a wedge is driven between them.
Wives yell, “You must ask it. Only then will you know the truth.” Husbands reply, “I don’t need to ask, I know perfectly well what the answer will be and I don’t like it.”
The young who hear its messages despair. “I am weak,” they say. “The mechanism tells me so and it must be the truth.” They sigh and tell themselves, “I’m a failure here and I will always fail.”
For some select few the mechanism presents a challenge that they can accept as doable. They take its statements as facts that they can deal with. They can work with those statements as guidance on the path they choose to follow.
But for the rest of us there is anger and rage at its messages. “Why do I come to it? Why did I ever bring this work of the devil into my home?”
It has a name this mechanism. It is called the bathroom scale.
