Demonic Blood Pressure Machine

Ok, so yesterday was a really bad day, considering the fact that all my attempts to stall the Sheriff's sale was denied, the short sale realtor wouldn't bother faxing the necessary papers over, and legal aid warned me not to file a bankruptcy just as stall tactic, and the mortgage company told me it was possible that the person who bought the house tomorrow could give me a 3-day eviction notice (not only am I not packed, but I have no where to go).

So after making arrangements to have my son go to Maryland with my mom for a few weeks and my cat going to my ex's, with the plan of a getting a storage unit and sleeping in my car (my poor fiance, I have no idea how or why he loves me enough to stay with me for all of this, or even having flown out here and leaving everything behind knowing this is what he was getting himself in for). Anyway....

So I am in wal-mart buying bubble wrap (for my china) and packing tape when I decide to get my blood pressure checked. I innocently sit down at the machine and while the evil suction band of death squeezes the life out of my arm, I read the stuff on the desk-like thing in front of me.

"This machine is calibrated for the average arm measurement of 9-13 inches. If your arm is larger or smaller, you may not receive an accurate reading."

Excuse me????

You're telling me I have larger arms than the average guy????

(Having taken my measurements only just last week, I know for a fact that my arms are 13 1/4 in circumference.)

When I relate all this to DF (dear fiance), he says, so what's the problem, you don't think you got an accurate reading?

?????

Are guys really that clueless?

I try to explain, and he says I'm obsessed, obsessed with diets, obsessed with numbers, obsessed with the way I look. Um, I am a girl, at 26 - 28 % body fat, living in a culture where 10 pounds underweight (17% bf) is screamed at me from every direction as the only way to look sexy, get and keep a man, etc. Where not only I am inundated with images of this so-called perfection but as is he. I am constantly bombarded with the message to compete, compete, compete, and work, work, work to reach an ideal weight. Whether by starvation, countless hours at the gym, or even surgery. So the last thing I need is to have some stupid machine tell me my arms are larger than the average man's.

The conversation did not end well, and I resolved never to talk to him again about this subject, and thus was born this idea....to blog about it.

Now granted, I admit that I have body image problems stemming from childhood (where I had severe body image problems). In fact, I know of no one who has suffered from the crippling, over-whelming feelings of shame that I have/do concerning my looks. But regardless, I am not the only girl who would be devastated to discover she has fatter arms than the average guy.

I even googled it today to see if the machine was wrong. Nope, the average man has a bicep of 12-13.

I can not describe the shame I feel as I write this.

:(