I notice that it's now the 21st century and our beloved country is still blatantly non-metric. Oh, we have the occasional two-liter soda bottle or the schizophrenic rulers marked with both inches and centimeters, but for the most part this is a metric-free zone. Look at it this way- entire countries in Europe have converted their money systems to Euros already, and we still have farthings, hectares and fathoms on our books. If nothing else, consider the fact we are about to be lapped by the Canadians on metric conversions. Doug and Bob McKenzie from the Great White North are closer to world unity than we are, eh?
What strikes me as particularly funny is how fast we Americans converted to coffee-metrics. Twenty years ago, coffee came in two sizes- small and large. For whatever reason, small was always TOO small and large approached Super Squishee proportions. Mugs, of course, were one size fits all- that is to say, bottomless. Then came the great gourmet coffee explosion of the late 80s and early 90s. The same Americans who had resisted speaking meters and liters into existence could suddenly order short, tall and grande coffees, without even once questioning the etymology. Heaven forbid I should pump three liters of gas into my tank, but give me a grande half-caf skinny soy mocha latte to go please.
I don't know if we'll ever go fully metric in this century, but I think it would be a great cosmic joke if all the gourmet coffee shops agreed to change their ordering system to something out of the Wizard of Id comic strip. I would just like to hear one person order, in all seriousness, a "frippin on the jimjam, frappin on the krotz". I have this sinking feeling I'll hear that long before I know how many kilometers it is to Disney World.
