Has anyone else had something like this happen to them?
Last week, my coworker's wife had a child, and we did the "guess the
gender and weight" contest that we always do in our office.
I guessed an even 3000 grams, and was the closest; the baby was 2981
grams. I had to translate the numbers for a few people, but no one
really minded that I submitted my answer in metric.
Last night, I was recalling this story to my friend Megan while in the
car, and her reaction to it was *this* shy of violent. She began
screaming at me, telling me how much of a (insert various four letters
words here) I am for using a system that no one else understands. Her
basic points were, if I ascertained them correctly in between her ranting:
- "No one" understands the metric system, therefore it's off-putting for
me to use it.
- It's "extremely rude" to speak in a manner that people don't understand.
- It's "moronic" and stinks of me just trying to "be different and weird
for the sake of being different and weird".
I told her that I wasn't going to listen to her insult me, dropped her
at her house, and left.
I cannot, for the life of me, understand that type of reaction. My
office-mates, even when they don't directly understand it, have a pretty
good idea of what I'm talking about. Rather than try to learn something
new, Megan's reaction is what I fear may be typical of many people in
this country. Either you act like everyone else, or you'll be branded a
nut-case. Never mind that most of the world uses this system, never
mind that the foreigners in this country use it, never mind that the
doctor who delivered the baby used it, *I* am not supposed to because it
makes her think, and she can't handle that.
Regards,
-Mike
