Economy of Scale

What is a kitchen scale worth to you? If you’re a serious cookery type, a lot more than this one. If you’re a knitter, this won’t be precise enough. But what if you’re one of the vast majority of humans who never needs to weigh anything in measurements smaller than one gram? What if you never cook more than 11 pounds of anything at one time? Will you get your eight bucks’ (plus five bucks shipping) worth out of this one?

Let’s add it up:

Save wear and tear on your measuring cups. If your recipe for crisp-fried squid calls for 2 tsp. of five-spice powder, just measure out five grams on the scale and keep your teaspoon in the drawer. Actually, it’s more like 5.2 grams, so just measure out five and drop a little more on. Who do you think you are, Martin Yan? Close enough. That’s worth $3.17.

Fun with nutritional measurements. Put some food on the scale, enter one of the 999 pre-programmed food codes, and this will calculate the calories, protein, carbohydrates, cholesterol, sodium and fiber contained therein. Check whatever’s in the kitchen. That ought to amuse you for half an hour, at least. And that’s worth about $1.80.

Dieting, conceivably. There’s some chance you might use those functions to eat more carefully, to be more aware of what you’re putting into your body, to be healthier. Not much of a chance, but let’s call it $0.62.

Measuring coffee. Never waste so much as a ground to get the flavor and buzz you need. And with the price of good coffee, every little fleck helps. We’d price that at $2.01.

Weighing random stuff. How many grams does a battery weigh? A roll of toilet paper? Your wallet? Your shoe? Both of your shoes? More fun! More amusement! Exactly $0.78 worth, we’d say.

Measuring drugs. You know what’s gonna happen to you if you short Nardo so much as a gram? Check the court transcripts for People vs. Gonzalo Flores. Hope you got a strong stomach, bro. This feature might only matter to a couple of you, but it matters a lot to those couple of people. We’ll average it out to $4.60 per person.

"Health-o-Meter". Cheesy old-school company names are so much cooler than the trendy garble of today. Let’s bring back names like “Juice-Ola” and “Autoluxe”. Supporting this one is worth $0.07.

Let’s see… that adds up to $13.05 of value for each scale - exactly one nickel more than you’ll pay, shipped. And a nickel weighs exactly 5 grams. See? Imagine how cool you’re going to be from now on.