Maysurements

I come from a part of the world where some people call it meh-surements and others may-surements. A place where centimeters and millimeters aren't unheard of, but their prefixes are usually attached to some sort of pede. I come from a place where most people (including myself) couldn't name every unit of measurement—pica, point, gill, minim, calorie, bushel, barrel, peck, teaspoon, tablespoon, monspoon, what? And despite my second grade training on the matter, I probably can't tell you how many ounces are in a cup are in a pint are in a quart are in a gallon. (Actually a cup is eight ounces, a pint is two cups, a quart is two pints, and a gallon is four quarts, but that's just me being an insufferable know-it-all.) And it's so easy to confuse ' and " if you're not sure which is feet and which is inches.

It's simple to screw up when calculating things using American measurements, since nothing is the same and nothing is based on powers of ten. Yeah, I can tell you that my pencil is four and seven eighths inches long, but no I do not know the decimal that corresponds with 7/8 off the top of my head.

My biggest qualm with the American system of measurement is that it makes conversion factors a beast. Having to stretch myself even translating feet to inches, it's even harder to translate calories to kilojoules, or pints to grams, or feet to decimeters.

I recommend we go standard, America. I think you'll find that meters and moles aren't so bad once you get acquainted.

P.S. Fun fact: You actually need around two million calories a day. The measurements on food labels aren't real calories, they're kilocalories, or 1,000 real calories. The cake really is a lie—it's actually 340,000 calories, not the 340 it claimed to be. This means Michael Phelps eats an average of twelve million calories per day. Like a boss.