Pickles & Motor Oil | Post 493
Hello once again, my dear Pickles.
I know you’re all on pins and porcupines wondering how things are going with your dear Clara in the new year. And I won’t beat around the bush.
Not good, friends. NOT. Good.
Most of you know that I participate in a handful of online programs that keep the lights on so I don’t have to put on a bra or find my shoes. The internet is a virtual wonderland—overflowing with opportunities to make tens of pennies through surveys, reviews, affiliate links, and a million other little lovelies and secrets I cannot divulge here.
Sometimes these companies mail me products to test, and that’s where today’s story begins.
Ladies, real talk. There isn’t enough time in the day. Period. It’s impossible to keep up with everything. So things tend to pile up around here. You’ll remember my resolution last year to clear away some clutter—get through all this unopened mail and these boxes stacked to the ceiling—and you’ll remember how that didn’t go so well. Life conspired to thwart me at every turn.
But I digest.
I decide I’ll try again this year, but on a more reasonable scale. One stack a week. That’s all. So I says to myself, “Clara,” I says, “just one stack each week, and in a couple of years you could have yourself a clear path from the front door to the back of the trailer.”
Ahh, a path! A PATH! What I wouldn’t do for a path. When was the last time I had a path?
So a couple weeks ago, right after New Year’s, feeling optimistic, I choose a stack at random and get to it.
OH! I found my boxcutter! That’s how it began. I found the boxcutter that vexed me throughout last year, and I took it as a sign. Y’all know I’m a bit psychic, so when I see a sign, I take it straight to the bank.
Anyhoozers… I open lots of little goodies, most of which I’ll certainly use someday. Or at least I plan to.
A nice set of kitchen towels, a cute little modular closet organizer, a desk pad for who-knows-what, and some branded coasters from a company I’ve never heard of that I immediately toss out the window into the trash pile out back. These days I can’t even keep track of what I’ve ordered myself versus my freebie promos from affiliates.
So I get to the bottom of the stack—and it’s a good thing, too, which you’ll understand because I need the floor space for what comes next.
Out come two items, packed individually in their own retail boxes, from a company called RenewU. The glossy box covers show that inside are a sleek, shiny black digital bathroom scale and a slim little wrist thingie with a rubber strap and a small digital screen.
Girls, you know how I feel about bathroom scales, so don’t get me started. But I’m intrigued by the wrist gadget, so I unpack and turn it on. It’s called a fitness tracker. There’s an app to download on my phone. But the setup won’t let me proceed without entering my height and weight. Well, I don’t know my height and weight, and who on God’s Green Earth would give a hoot for that info?
Still, my curiosity gets the better of me, so I open the box with the bathroom scale and glance over the instructions. It has the cutest little feature where a laser attachment allows you to figure out your height! HOW COOL IS THAT? It’s supposed to scan the nearby wall, but I find the nearby stack of boxes works in a pinch.
So I did it. Yes, I admit it. I stepped on the Gravity 3000, and the results were… um… not what I would consider accurate.
I’ve lived in this body for forty-something years, and I know myself far better than some stranger who forces its way into my home to tell me lies and accuse me of things that simply aren’t true.
They aren’t true, I tell you.
In that moment, I feel like I’m going a bit daffy doodles, you know what I mean? These numbers don’t add up.
And then I put it ALL together. This is just the next scam casserole—stirred up and baked to a bubbly 350 by the national fat-shame lobby! I can see through this like a worn-through hole in an old fitted sheet.
All about profits—just like all the rest. That’s what it is. I will bet you a trough of biscuits and gravy that “RenewU” pumps extra gravity into their bathroom scales to make gals like us feel bad about ourselves. Then we’ll trip all over ourselves to buy their treadmills and their compression gear and their protein supplements. Oh yes, I looked you up on the online, little mister. You and your whole line of products. I’m onto you, good sir, and so are my subscribers. Yes, ma’am.
Pickles, we need to stick together. Hold firm and don’t let these men shame us for carrying a little extra cushion. I don’t need a scale to tell me I feel no different now than I did in high school. Body positivity, am I right?
I have written a stern letter to RenewU about their scale. “ONE Star. Do Not Recommend,” I says.
And to spite them, I did not return their products. That scale will remain right there on my linoleum floor to remind me of what we’re up against.
Looking at it now, that linoleum floor’s been uneven for years. That’s probably also throwing off the results.
I’ll write to the floor people next.