Pampered to Death by Laura Levine

your weigh in!”
    “My weigh in?” I gasped, beads of sweat popping up on my brow.
    “It’s a routine procedure. We weigh you now so you can see how much weight you’ve lost by the end of the week.”
    The last time I stepped on a scale of my own free will was, well, never. So you can imagine how upset I was.
    “Can’t we just make a guestimate?” I asked. “Say, somewhere between 120 and The Biggest Loser? ”
    Olga nixed that plan in no uncertain terms and herded me over to The Haven’s gym.
    Like the Spa Therapy Center, the gym was a charmless box of a building, fluorescent-lit and linoleum-clad, used mainly—as my poor muscles would soon discover—for aerobics.
    As we walked inside, I saw a buff young couple working out on some treadmills.
    “Jaine,” Olga said, gesturing to them with pride, “meet Sven and Shawna, two of my most valued employees.”
    Sven was a throbbing hunk of nonstop muscles and piercing blue eyes; Shawna, an equally striking blonde, with lush eyelashes and lusher lips.
    Clearly these two were prominent members of the Ken and Barbie family tree.
    “Sven and Shawna are both aerobics instructors,” Olga explained, “as well as licensed massage therapists.”
    They flashed me twin Ultra Brite smiles, nearly blinding me in the process.
    “Get the record book, Shawna,” Olga said, snapping her fingers. “It’s time for Jaine’s weigh in.
    I groaned to see my long-time nemesis, Mr. Detecto, the scale, lurking in a corner, along with a strange egg-shaped piece of equipment.
    Shawna clambered off her treadmill and scooted off to retrieve a ledger from a small office adjacent to the gym.
    “Okay, Jaine,” Olga barked, pointing to the scale. “Get your fanny up there!”
    “Can’t I take off my shoes first? And my watch? And my scrunchy? And this tissue in my pocket—”
    “On the scale!” she glowered. “Now!”
    Reluctantly I stepped on the scale, holding my breath in the mistaken belief that it would somehow make me thinner.
    Olga’s eyebrows shot up in disapproval as she moved the weight bar over a notch or two.
    “What a tub of lard!”
    Okay, she didn’t really say that. But what she did next was almost as bad. She shouted out my weight, all three depressing digits, in a voice that could be heard in the next county. Along with Colonel Sanders’ herbs and spices, my weight happens to be a carefully guarded national secret, and I didn’t appreciate her blabbing it at the top of her lungs.
    Over at his treadmill, Sven had the grace to pretend he couldn’t hear what was happening.
    I’d barely stepped down off the scale when Olga whipped out a tape measure from one of her pockets and cinched it around my middle.
    “My God, Jaine, I’ve measured radial tires smaller than your waist.”
    Okay, she didn’t say that, either, but I could tell that’s what she was thinking as she shouted out my measurements for Shawna to enter in the record book.
    Shawna dutifully noted them down, shooting me a sympathetic smile.
    Olga finished taking my measurements, making the most annoying tsk tsk sounds when she got to my hips. At last my ordeal was over, and I was just about to make a break for it, when she shoved her sinewy arm in my path.
    “Not so fast. You still have to do the Fat Vat.”
    “The Fat Vat?”
    “A body composition assessment machine,” she said, pointing to the egg-shaped contraption I’d noticed earlier. “It measures your body fat. We call it the Fat Vat.”
    I now saw that it was hooked up to a computer.
    Olga swung open the machine’s door, revealing a bench inside.
    “Go ahead. Grab a seat.”
    I did as instructed, and she slammed the door shut.
    Good heavens, I felt like a chick about to be hatched. It was awfully close in there. And something about the air pressure made my ears start to pop. I watched through a thick glass window as Olga fiddled at the computer. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity but was probably only five highly