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So the other day I pop into my local supermarket which happens to bake the best peanut butter cookies I’ve ever had — delicious peanut butter flavor & loaded with chunks of peanuts. I love peanut butter cookies & it’s always a treat when this store bakes them, which is too infrequently. They come in a tray of 50 for $5 which is a good deal itself, but it’s the special peanut butter flavor I’m after.
I put a tray in my basket & did the rest of my shopping. In line at the register, I sensed something was wrong with my tray of peanut butter cookies (I had bought many trays before). I counted the cookies through the transparent lid & there were only 44. I told the checker I’d be right back & to take the next people in line.
I was gone quite awhile.
Back in the bakery section, I counted the cookies in each & every tray, and they varied from 37 to 46 — not a single one was the full 50. I went back to the checkstand (where my ice cream was melting) and asked for a manager. Not to make a scene, but rather to inform of the issue & save the next unaware customer from being cheated. The manager was rather surprised upon counting several of the trays herself & quickly offered to “rob from Peter” to bring my tray up to the full measure.
She opens the lid, stops for a moment & says “These don’t smell like peanut butter.” Handed me one gratis to confirm & sure enough it was their new disgusting “apple crisp” cookie. (Attention bakers: apple crisp is done in a baking pan, not in a cookie.) The little bits of apple sure looked like peanuts but sure didn’t taste like them. & yes, all the trays contained apple crisp cookies, not peanut butter as labeled.
So one more thing to add to the list in this little hick town I live in: people can’t count & they can’t read, either. But they sure can bake excellent peanut butter cookies…when they’re actually peanut butter cookies.
Why isn’t the United States on the metric system? I’ll tell you why — we’re too damn lazy, and I got proof. Back in the 70s or 80s several freeways in California installed highway signs that were black, not green (that alone was beauty to my eyes), displaying the upcoming exits in kilometers. And several gas stations switched their pumps to liters. How easy and efficient that was, computing distances and volume simply by factoring by 10, 100, or 1000. Easy and efficient while it lasted, anyway. Soon everything was converted back to our convoluted miles and gallons.
I can’t understand why architects try to scale things by 8ths and 16ths when using millimeters and centimeters is so much easier and accurate. I measure everything in metrics – times 10, divide by 10, etc. Anyone who can’t figure out simple metric calculations probably still uses a slide rule just to make math difficult.
Why are soda bottles in the US labeled 1.5L and so on? I’m not sure, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a sneaky way to reduce the volume without anyone noticing. Remember half-gallon ice cream tubs? Today they’re 1.5L, which is far less than half a gallon. (1/2 gallon = 1.892 liters). I’m all for it, though. Maybe the metric system will catch on in this so-called progressive country after all.
I’ll give us credit for the currency system, though. That’s close to metric efficiency. The Euro has denominations similar to the US, but each bill is a colorful contemporary design, not black and green on every single note. Needless to say, America is behind on design, too. That’s another topic, though. And then there’s our prudishness about nudism. Yet another topic.
Gotta go get me a cup of coffee…or is that .23L? Cup is one US term I’ll stick with.