50 Shades of Green

Have you ever had one of those days where you ask one of your friends how their week was and they say, “fine”?

And then they ask how your week was and you say, “Holy crap, I met this billionaire and he really liked me but then he made me sign this DNR contract, which I thought meant do not resuscitate, but really it meant I couldn’t talk about him. So I really shouldn’t be talking to you about him, but seriously it was so exciting and a little scary, but then we broke up.”

And then, after you’re all out of breath from telling your friend about your thrilling week, you realize it was only a book that you read, and that, no, you hadn’t really done anything interesting in a long time.

And your friend admits, “Yeah, I read that book, too.”

And you both feel embarrassed because you’re not sure if you should have read that book, and you’re not sure if you should say that you liked it or if you should pretend you hated it, or maybe you should critique it in some lofty manner like, “the editing wasn’t great,” but saying it in a smarter way. But really you know you’re just jealous that a mother self-published a novel that was so popular that it turned into an international bestseller simply through word of mouth.

But you don't know how to act so instead you stammer, “I mean ... I had the flu this week and I got to read a little bit. That’s all I was saying.”

And you pretend the whole misunderstanding was some sort of leftover residue from fever dreams.

Red, White and Flu

Maybe I’m the only one, or maybe it was because I had a fever — and I know the Olympics are almost over by now, but I still need to complain — but I find the scoring system for gymnastics extremely confusing. How are you supposed to know when someone has done well or not? If they score a
14.798787312 is that 4 points better than a perfect 10?

But perhaps it doesn’t matter what I think; I’m an old-ish lady. The newer generations will grow up knowing the new system and they will understand it.

Which brings me to my pommel horse of a good point: If the International Gymnastics Federationhas the foresight to convert to a more complicated scoring system 110 years after the Olympics started, can we please, please as a nation convert to the metric system?

I know it seems confusing now but it really is so much easier. It is a decimal based system of measurement which means you multiply and divide by 10. 10!

The metric system scores a perfect 16.98374238740283048 in my book.

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