The Waste-line

It's pretty easy at first. You start with one kg, two kgs. Soon it turns into multiples of ten. And when you are not looking, it quietly sneaks into multiples of twenty.

It was at one such time that I decided to weigh myself, having nothing better to do in my hotel. I walked into the bathroom and turned on the tap in the bathtub, meaning to give myself a luxurious half hour doing nothing but patiently bursting the umpteen teensy bubbles while sipping on cranberry juice and stuffing myself with fries. After satisfying myself with the bathtub, I turned my attention to the weighing scale and climbed on it.

A sickening crunch echoed in my ears and I was half immobilized with the realisation that it was my weight that had caused a 15000-dollar weighing scale of the Le Meridien, Kuala Lumpur to shatter like a cracked egg-shell.

Ever the optimistic, I thought of the thousand and one other ways that could have resulted in that sickening crunch but was terrified of getting off that scale to confirm my suspicions.

After about twenty minutes of contemplation (and further creaks and crunches) I slowly got off the scale and looked down.

The scale, praise be to Allah, was intact. I mentally struck off the $15000 that I had added as penalty to my bill. It was my 30000-dollar Dolce and Gabbana eye-glasses that were lying dead under the scale.