LocalScale is not taking effect at runtime

I am doing a simple block breaker type of game. (Unity 5.5.1f1)

I have a class (called PowerUpBase) that controls my powerUps which will drop from broken bricks.

I then I have all of my powerUps inherit from that class. All of my powerUps are working except for the ones that are supposed to increase and decrease the scale of my paddle in the X-axis The derived class for one of these is called IncreasePaddlePowerUp.

Everything compiles fine. When I run the game and pick up the power up nothing appears to happen - the scale does not get altered at runtime. However, when I stop the game, the editor shows that the paddle was scaled and the inspector says X axis scale = 1.25. See below, this value for x is what I coded. Again, nothing (nothing visual) appears in the game window.

Here is the class:

 using UnityEngine;
 using System.Collections;
 
 //Make sure there is always an rigidbody,boxcollider and audiosource component on the GameObject where this script is added.
 [RequireComponent(typeof(Rigidbody2D), typeof(BoxCollider2D), typeof(AudioSource))]
 public class PowerUpBase : MonoBehaviour    //This is the base class for all powerup. When creating new powerups, derive from this
 {
     public float DropSpeed = 5; //How fast does it drop?
     public AudioClip Sound; //Sound played when the powerup is picked up
     
     // Use this for initialization
     void Start()
     {
         GetComponent<AudioSource>().playOnAwake = false;
     }
     
     // Update is called once per frame
     protected virtual void Update()
     {
         transform.position += new Vector3(0, -DropSpeed, 0) * Time.deltaTime;
     }
     
     //Monobehaviour method, notice the IEnumerator which tells unity this is a coroutine
     IEnumerator OnTriggerEnter2D(Collider2D other)
     {
         //Only interact with the paddle
         if (other.name == "Paddle")
         {
             //Notify the derived powerups that its being picked up
             OnPickup();
             
             //Prevent furthur collisions
             gameObject.GetComponent<SpriteRenderer>().enabled = false;
             gameObject.GetComponent<BoxCollider2D>().enabled = false;
 
             //Change the sound pitch if a slowdown powerup has been picked up
             GetComponent<AudioSource>().pitch = Time.timeScale;
             
             //Play audio and wait, without the wait the sound would be cutoff by the destroy
             GetComponent<AudioSource>().PlayOneShot(Sound);
             yield return new WaitForSeconds(Sound.length);
 
             
 
         }
     }
     
     //Every powerup which derives from this class should implement this method!
     {
         
     }
 }

And then here is the derived class that is on the powerUp prefab

 using UnityEngine;
 using System.Collections;
 
 public class IncreasePaddlePowerUp : PowerUpBase {
 
     public GameObject paddle;
     public float revertCountdown;
     private bool nowsAGoodtime = false;
 
     
     protected override void OnPickup(){
         //Call the default behaviour of the base class frist
         base.OnPickup();
         ScaleUp();
 
     }
 
     void ScaleUp()
     {
         paddle.transform.localScale += new Vector3(0.25f, 0f, 0f);
         revertCountdown -= Time.deltaTime;
         RevertToNormal();
 
         Debug.Log("localScale = " + paddle.transform.localScale);
         Debug.Log("revertCountdown = " + revertCountdown);
         Debug.Log("RevertToNormal() was called.");
     }
 
     void RevertToNormal()
     {
         if (revertCountdown <= 0.0f)//this never happens because the 
                                     //revertCountDown stops at 9.98
         {
             paddle.transform.localScale = new Vector3(1f, 1f, 1f);
         }
     }
 }

In ScaleUp(), I put some Debug.Log() in the derived class and its even more weird than I expected.

Instead of showing localScale.x to be 1.25 (I did ...+= new Vector3(o.25f...) as I expected, instead it shows 1.3? makes no sense!

Additionally, it shows 9.98 as the revertCountdown value. I assume this is because it leaves the method to go to RevertToNormal() before more than 0.02 seconds has elapsed?

I thought is was going to be simple to just scale the paddle for ten seconds and then downscale back to normal...have spent hours now trying a variety of different approaches to solve this...to no avail.

Thanks in advance for taking the time to look at this and answer!