“Serving overseas as a small-town boy from America is intense, stressful and humorous! Enjoy a light-hearted story with me from our last 20 years overseas!”
—Matt
Measurement Miscalculations
What was your weight and height on your first driver’s license? When I was 16 years old and overly optimistic at the BMV, I padded my height by 3 or 4 inches and my weight by at least 20 pounds. I didn’t want my license to be outdated as I kept growing. The gal behind the desk gave me a doubtful glance when she saw what I had filled out, but she kindly didn’t say anything to my fragile ego. Well, several years went by and it was time to renew my driver’s license. However, this time I put down my actual height and weight, as I had not really grown since I was sixteen.
Overseas I continue to miscalculate measurements. Adding units of meters or kilograms is grouping of 100 is easier than pounds (16s) and inches (12s), but I have trouble quantifying it. I feel like I am driving faster than I should in kilometers/hour when the number is a third larger. I never know how to answer American visitors when they ask me, “what kind of mileage do you get with that vehicle?” They measure fuel consumption in liters per 100 kilometers, which isn’t an easy calculation to miles per gallon.
Clothing and shoe sizes here overseas use a different numerical system and sizes like small, medium, and large are one step smaller than in the USA. How big is out our apartment? I don’t know – it is measured in square meters. How big is our city? I am not sure -it is measured in hectares.
However, measurements of time can be the most dangerous. Over here the measure time in a day in 24 hour or military time (for example, 9PM = 21:00). Time in a year is written, day, month, and then year. It is not considered bad form for stores to sell expired products, so if you misread the order of the day and month, you can buy expired products. The worst is when a form is filled out in American style (month/day/year, March 1, 2021 – 3/1/2021), but read by somebody overseas who understands it differently (3/1/2021 = 3 January 2021). I had to have a negative covid test results 72 hours before arrival back from the USA. They thought I was showing them a covid test from January, when it was from March.
My tape measure in my toolbox is in centimeters and meters. I knew not to bring any American sized wrenches or tools that wouldn’t work here.
I still struggle when filling out medical forms when I am asked the question , “How tall are you?“ The person looks at me with disbelief that I could be so dumb as to not know my height (centimeters), but I am still stumped!
Something similar ever happen to you? Contact me and let me hear your story!
mattsmishaps@gmail.com Matt’s Mishaps, PO BOX 114, Grabill, IN 46741
