The Smallest Thing this Side of Asia

My ideal weight is 108 pounds. Or maybe just a little more than that. Random, much?

Allow me to explain. As a child I loved Batman.

... Doesn't that clarify everything?

I don't mean the modern Batman, who takes himself so seriously that he can't spurt flames out of the back of the Bat-mobile. I also don't mean the ridiculous Batman who hangs out with Chris O'Donnell and makes movies so bad, I literally had to turn it off after 15 minutes and rock back and forth in the corner until Marvel came to save me. (Oh yeah, we're gonna nerd out here. Let it go there.) I mean the original Batman movie with Michael Keaton, Jack Nicholson, Kim Basinger, and just enough 'really?' to make sure an eight-year-old Abi didn't have nightmares until she was thirty. (I still do have Batman nightmares. However, at eight-years-old, the Joker leaving me love notes and bringing me baguettes with WAY TOO MUCH butter on them [He's trying to kill me. Even at eight I knew that much butter would kill me.] before chasing me across Niagara falls on a high-wire seemed like the most terrifying thing possible. Now it's more amusing, and I have a little sit down with my brain in the morning and give it the eyebrow quirk. Nightmares have become much less fun as I age. Stupid real life. Ah, for the days when comic book villains were the only thing I had to fear.)

At one point in the movie, Vicky (ugh, that name just screams botox) gets herself in a mite bit of trouble (which skinny blonds in superhero movies never, ever do. So out of character.). Batman attaches some kind of vertical zip line to her (which if I were a real nerd I would know the name of and not just call "the-Bat-Vertical-Zip-Line-Thingy"), to whisk her out of danger. He asks how much she weighs (and really, if the "Bat-VZLT" can't haul Kim Basinger off the ground, why does he even carry it? Does he really think there's any chance in Hades she weighs more than him?). She replies "108, I think."

Somewhere in my little girl brain, something latched onto those numbers 1-0-8. My eight-year-old self determined that 108 pounds was therefore the ideal weight for a woman, who at some point in life might be interested in being saved from mask-wearing thugs (or Yankees fans) by a grown man dressing in tights. (I actually had someone correct me once, saying, "They aren't tights, they are fitted rubber pants. ... wow, that's so much better. I wouldn't dare question the masculinity of a dude in skin-tight rubber pants. Notice how they never show Batman getting dressed? This is why. There is nothing more repulsive than a man putting on tights ... or rubber pants. ... I'm a dancer; I know these things.

After the subsequent butt-kicking and reunion of Batman and our D.I.D. he quips, "You weigh a little more than 108." Little Abi decided that, perhaps then, a little more than 108 was acceptable. Although, I never reached a satisfactory conclusion on what that mysterious acceptable bulk was.

Sadly, Little Abi passed 108 long before she was available for rescue. For some reason I can't shake the idea that this is a good weight. If I was attached to a lie-detector and asked what my ideal weight was, 108 would be the only non-needle-jiving answer. And this with a complete disregard for everything I know about health and body types, and growing up and not acting like a toddler at some point.

Since my weight stabilized after having Hannah I have lost 25 pounds. I now weigh 10 pounds less than I did before both of my kids. As I continue to work at fitness, this obsession with 108 (or a little more) has returned. I'm not living via the scale, I'm not doing anything unhealthy, or disregarding the temple the Lord has blessed me with in any way. I'm just saying if I woke up tomorrow and the scale said 108 pounds, the little eight-year-old girl inside me would raise the roof.

At church on Sunday a friend mentioned that I was looking quite slim. Tiny, in fact. Like I had never had two babies. And like, I was, perhaps, the smallest thing in the world. She paused after this declaration and then clarified, "Well, except maybe for Asian women."

"So, I'm the smallest thing this side of Asia?" I queried.

"Exactly," she replied, relieved that I understood.

I don't weigh 108. I don't weigh a little more than 108. But I just might be the smallest thing this side of Asia.

Which is not a concerning statement at all.