Oh you’re all excited because I live in a Muslim country and YOU think this post is about sex. Ha. Admit it. You did you dirty birds. Well it’s not. It’s not about sex, it’s not about breastfeeding in public, it’s not about religion or politics or incest or money. It’s not. It’s about a very serious Canadian dysfunction that is so widely accepted by all levels of the population that it’s not even a damn thing. And it should be!

We have no consistent system of weights and measures.

And let’s be clear. Aside from currency, time keeping and societal mores, there are few systems that are more ancient or fundamental than weights and measures. Hell it’s a thing in Game of Thrones for the love of God. But not in Canada. Consistency in our approach to weights and measures is non existent. And it’s an idiocyncratic fact that I am determined to bring out into the light of day and share our shame with the world.

And by world, I mean….I think I have a blog follower in the U.S. (Patricia) So la-dee-da.

I have always been baffled by this weirdness of ours. But its been something that I have really been noticing lately, because Morocco HAS a system of weights and measures. It’s called the METRIC system. Just like the one in Canada right? NO damn it. Not like Canada at all! The United States is the only country in the world that still uses the Imperial system right? NO! It’s not.

Now I can understand that the U.S. hasn’t made ANY effort to convert because they have SO many other issues to deal. But Canada made the shift a long long time ago. I remember. I was in grade school. I had JUST learned all about gallons, and pounds and ounces. I remember because it involves numbers and numbers cause me physical pain so it sticks out in my mind. I remember standing in my mothers kitchen with various vessels, measuring things out. Imagine then the teacher saying…”yah, forget all that, we’re going metric.” NOOOOOOO! I was NOT on board with that decision. Not at all. But come on – it’s 2016.  Shouldn’t we have made a wee bit more of an effort? Seriously.

And I have read all those Internet thingy’s. “You know you’re a Canadian when” And it’s a long list of blah blah, toques and moose and poutine. Whatever. How about pounds and kilos? No? No one? Does NO ONE WANT TO ADMIT IT? We have a problem!

Now I have a lot going through my tiny little brain lately. Just in order to get out the door in the morning. I am mocked for a constant use of my xe.com app. “You’re always converting currency. It’s cute” NO ITS NOT. I’m trying to work in Moroccan dirhams converted to US dollars because it’s a decimal place, then into Canadian dollars to get a real number and then some idiot will undoubtedly toss in a Euro mention just to be cute. Then there is the language. The national language is Arabic, but that’s only used in formal situations because most people use some derivative form of Arabic based on their location within the country and then the Berbers start talking and that language is impossible because it contains Arabic, French and pig Latin and then there is English with a Berber accent so everyone defaults to French and I’m from Canada so that should be no problem at all but it is because it’s Quebec French and no one understands it so I order a jus d’avocat and everyone looks at me like I just ordered the head of a baby. JESUS.

I don’t need to complication of converting units of measure. I went to the gym this afternoon and hopped on the treadmill. It was in German. I DON’T KNOW WHY. Then I went down to the gym floor and decided to do some upper body. I looked around for my old 10 lb weights only to find what? KG’s. What the hell. I had to get out my damn iPhone to find out just what I was dealing with. I looked around for someone to share this moment only to find no one who spoke English. Figures.

Why do we buy a lb of bacon and kg’s of lunch meat in the same section of the grocery store? Why do we price our gas by the gallon but drive in km/hr? We have foot long hotdogs and I believe we just had a national scandal because Subway sandwiches were not a full 12 INCHES. WHY people? We are on the metric system. It should not be a thing to come to a foreign country and not be able to determine the relative price of gas because we are on the metric system too. But we’re not. Damn it. Oh, and I used to be designer. I know the size of queen size bed. Everyone knows the size of queen size bed. But not in Morocco. It’s completely different. And forget buying shoes. I’m a size 10 at home but a 41 here. Why? Why?

I blame English people. Yes we import everything from the United States. Ok not everything but a lot of things. Many many things. And it comes in oz. with kg in brackets? What the? The French people of Quebec were so insistent and so successful at forcing every – single – damn – thing that entered our country to be relabelled (at great expense Target – heads up!), that we all just gave up talking about our labelling demands. Why could we not, at the same time, demand the metric system? You have to relabel ANYWAY to make sure everything is in our two official languages. Why do we not demand our official national consistent system of weights and measures? Why? Who knows. Exhaustion probably. But is that any excuse? How have we not worked this out?