Life's ups and downs

The tall truth-teller at the grocery store is hard to resist, luring shoppers old and young to step up and take their measure.

By LANE DeGREGORY, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published January 28, 2003

HUDSON -- The woman with teased red hair walks into Publix, turns to the left. She's wearing vanilla slides, support hose, a print rayon blouse with a rhinestone broach. She sets her black purse on the counter by Cash Register 1. Takes off her bifocals and puts them beside the purse.

Every ounce counts.

She walks across the aisle. Stands hands on hips, staring down the scale. Then she mounts slowly. Right foot. Left. The arrow climbs to 162.

Even without her glasses, she knows that's too high.

"Land sakes!" she cries. "If I don't watch it, they'll put me in the circus!"

Her name is Victoria Pokorny. She's a great-grandmother. "An American proud of my Polish heritage," she says loudly. "I'm supposed to lose 35 pounds. Oh my gosh! I'll never do that.

"But I check myself, every time," she says. "Just in case."

Bowing before it

Grocery stores are community centers of sorts, places where people of all ages and incomes pass through.

The scale is the epicenter of those communities.

People are drawn to it like magnets to a refrigerator.

On this chilly Wednesday in January, roughly one of every three shoppers stops at the scale.

All have their reasons for the reckoning, their reactions to the result.

The domed glass above the arrow reflects their fears, their determination and their hopes.

Whether they're buying broccoli or beer, they stop. Step up. Pay their respects to the god of gravity.

Weigh station

Publix stores have had public scales since the 1930s. "Just a service to our customers," grocery manager Mike Linares says. The scales are calibrated every six months. "We've never had a complaint about accuracy," he says.

In most of the stores, the scale is the first thing you see when you go in, the last thing you pass as you leave.

At Store No. 295 on U.S. 19 in Hudson, though, the popular Toledo model stands inside the automatic glass doors, past a stack of gray grocery baskets and the automated scooters you can ride while you shop. It's wedged between shelves stacked with Morton salt pellets and Rug Doctor Steam Cleaners. Next to freezers filled with bagged ice. Across from Aisle 11.

"No one seems to have any trouble finding it, though," Linares says.

"Seems someone is always on this scale."

It's a 6-foot beauty with a round, well-lined face. White frame. Silver trim. A wide base. HONEST WEIGHT, it promises. And, as an added enticement: Your Weight Free.

Who could resist?

Dinner for one

On her way out of Publix, Marie Eisener parks her grocery cart. It's almost empty. She sets her black handbag on a bag of salt. Straightens her cardigan. She steps onto the scale's nonskid strips, one black pump at a time.

When the arrow rests at 106, she sighs. Closes her eyes. Shakes her head.

"It's taking such a long time," she says. "It's very hard. Very hard. My doctor wants me to gain weight, but I've lost 12 pounds.

"I just don't have any appetite since my husband died."

It's been 10 months now, she says. "We were married 52 years."

At 85, she's trying to learn how to shop for one. "There's no one to cook for. No one to eat with. It's very hard," she says, stepping down off the scale. "Very hard."

Her cart contains two plastic bags: a small carton of cottage cheese and a loaf of fruit bread, and a dozen Lender's bagels and a half-bunch of bananas.

"And this," she says, trying to prove she's trying. She shows off a half-gallon of Breyers vanilla. "Every night, I have ice cream. With wet walnuts. And sometimes a nice piece of pound cake.

"But it doesn't do any good," she says. She picks up her purse, pulls her sweater around her slim shoulders.

"I'm still losing. Still 106. This scale doesn't lie."

Surf and turf -- and surf

Some people don't have a scale at home. Or don't trust the one they have. Or don't want to bother. Others weigh in under doctor's orders. Or just for fun.

Some thumb their noses.

Mark Chircop, 38, pushes his packed cart past the scale, then stops. He hops on the platform. The arrow spins. He laughs.

"Last time I was here, last week, I was 205. Now I'm 209," he says. "Must be all these heavy clothes." He's wearing a navy T-shirt, cotton shorts, red sneakers, no socks.

"My wife wants me to lose weight," he says, shoving his heavy cart toward the glass doors.

So what's for dinner?

"Steak and shrimp. Oh, and scallops," he says proudly. "I'm really not trying."

Kids and pumpkins

A man with a big belly and wearing a white baseball cap says he gets on the scale only before doctor's appointments. "I have to know if I need to cancel and reschedule," he says. "I don't want them to be yelling at me all the time."

A woman who had open-heart surgery, wearing trim, tan riding pants and gold-rimmed glasses, says she lost 28 pounds last year. "And watched every pound drop off on this scale," says Claura Lauro, 61, of Port Richey.

Bag boy Ian McNair says kids climb on it two or three at a time. "Jumping up and down, holding hands. You can't get 'em off it!" he says.

Kids come mostly on Saturdays, he says. With their grandparents. Or great-grandparents.

At this store, your grandmother's grandmother comes to shop, employees joke.

"People aren't the only things that get weighed on that scale," McNair says knowingly. "I've been working here more than a year. I've seen things. . . ."

Some folks bring in their luggage, he says. They wheel those old, hard-side suitcases from their trunks to the store. Plop them on the scale to see if the airline will let them fly.

"Then there was the pumpkin," he says, reaching way back to October. "Must've weighed more than me. 140 pounds, at least. Wait. Is that right? The watermelon may have been bigger. I don't remember. There've been so many."

During inventory, employees weigh Brach's candy, dog food, anything that can be counted by the pound.

"I get on it myself, two or three times a week," grocery manager Linares says. "Just to monitor, I guess. If it's over 200, I worry.

"You see a lot of women come in here. They set down their purses. Take off their shoes, their jackets, even their jewelry before they'll jump on.

"Men never do that," he says. "I guess it's just not that important to us."

A leg up

Just before dark, a white-haired couple walk into the store, both pushing the cart, side by side. They stop at the scale. She steps on.

Her name is Louise Francoeur. She's 65. Her husband, Marcel, is 58. They're from France. They're staying in Port Richey for the winter. She always checks her weight, she says. "At my age, you need to watch it." He never gets on.

As Louise watches, wide-eyed, the arrow shivers and climbs. 120. 130. Louise frowns and squints her eyes. 140. Something is wrong.

"I knew I gained some weight over the holidays," she says. 150. 160. "But not this much. Oh my gosh!"

Behind her, her husband starts laughing. He steps back. He'd been pressing on the platform with his black sneaker, watching the dial spin higher, teasing her again.

"Oh, he's bad. He's so bad," she says, smacking his shoulder. "He does that to me all the time. I should have known."

She's trying to lose 15 pounds, she says. "He's no help."

She steps down and steers the cart toward the produce section. Her husband trails behind, darting in and out of the aisles.

As she thumps a cantaloupe, he picks up a pack of pineapple muffins. Slam-dunks it into the cart, over her head. Adds a giant bag of Lay's ripple potato chips.

No wonder he never weighs in. "I know better," he says, heading for the bakery. "I'm scared of that scale."

© St. Petersburg Times. All rights reserved.