If you know me at all, you know that I am obsessed with standing on the scale several hundred times a day. I do this to keep my weight in check. Not that it helps. Not that it has prevented me, as of late, from sticking my hand in to the bag of Doritos, or m&ms... stuff like that. My scale started acting funny when I became pregnant with Alexander, my third and oh so final child. The numbers crept up faster and and with more fury than they had with the other pregnancies. Luckily the number climbing did slow and stop at a fairly respectable number. Then the scale went crazy after the baby was born. Perhaps it was like a sibling or a pet and it decided to act out to get some attention. Well, it got some attention all right. So much so that I am tempted to toss it altogether. The numbers were decreasing for a while, then as if playing some cruel April Fools joke on me she spun her numbers so out of control. They keep climbing and climbing and climbing. And every once in a while the numbers creep back down, for no reason whatsoever, to pretty darn close to where they ought to be. I have a digital scale and I try to trick it. I will stand on it, half on half off, on my tippy toes just so... balancing ever so delicately... if I have to I will use the wall for support and when I am really desperate I will hoist myself up on to the towel bar. I am looking for that magic number. See, this way who needs diet and exercise? OK, I really do not perform these contortionist-like activities while standing on one toe on my scale. But I can fudge the numbers by leaning a little bit in this direction or a little bit in that direction. Or at least I could. Until my scale broke and got stuck on some rotten number that will not budge for the life of me. So today I will head off in search of a nice new bathroom scale. I am thinking that I will not go digital this time. And after I buy my new scale I will reward myself by getting some new jeans... that fit.