Weighing Scale

It is frustrating to discover every weighing machine that I encounter in the shopping complexes has a maximum measurement of 120kg.

Twenty years ago, after I had overshot the mark, I often walked away with bitter smiles and heavy sighs. Noticing the surrounding people were smiling and laughing away, my face turned red and then blue and then purple. It was very, very frustrating and disappointing.

I hated the scale and the moment I saw one, I would walk very far away from it, terrified and in despair.

Why can't the maximum mark be 150kg? Is it unusual for me to weigh more than 120kg? Oh! How I had hated that machine.

I have started walking and jogging around the housing estates with my wife even since I have hated that weighing machine. But each time when I stood on that scale (after making sure that no one was around), the weighing needle just zoomed across the mark. I felt like stamping on the machine but I didn't dare to lift my foot.

The past few weeks we decided to reduce our intake of rice (our staple food) and replaced it with a mug of oatmeal. We continued our usual exercises. Somehow it helped. We seemed to walk and run faster. And to our surprise, we started slimming down.

Two weeks ago, while avoiding some persistent salesmen, somehow we were face to face with a weighing machine. My wife decided to weigh herself. She discovered that her weight was down by 5kg. She was smiling away happily. She insisted that I took a measurement. Reluctantly I stood on the machine but turned my face elsewhere, not wanting to know the outcome. To my embarrassment, my wife was screaming happily and insisted that I took a look at the scale. It was...............118kg. I grinned happily, with tears swelling in my eyes. Oh machine, you have quietly smiling away and torturing me for the past 20 years. Wow, nice feeling! I finally can read my measurement. LOL