Made To Measure

It’s been a busy week, so here are some things that have been happening, in no particular order:

1) I was out driving and realized that I was very close to the next mileage milestone, which was 99999 kilometres, followed immediately by 100000. My car is a 2013 and because I lived in Toronto during the week for several years, I didn’t drive it much. In fact, looking at my last mileage post, the incredibly funny and somewhat juvenile 80085 (my car has a digital readout and that spells BOOBS, in case you had any doubt that this blog was sophisticated and adult-ish in the non-porn way), I see that I posted my BOOBS picture on August 23, 2020. Yes, it took me a year and a half to drive not quite 20 000 kilometres (that would be around 12, 427 miles for my Imperial friends). But by the time I realized I was almost at another photo-worthy moment, however, I was in my driveway, the odometer read 99996, and I was too tired to drive around the block several times, so I decided to wait until the next morning when I had to see my doctor about sudden tinnitus in my right ear. And even though I had to pull over twice in the space of two minutes to get 99999 and then 100000, I still made my appointment on time. I do this for YOU and not me, so I hope you appreciate my efforts.

2) I was cleaning out a kitchen cupboard and I found a small, antique salt shaker far in the back. I couldn’t remember buying it but it was pretty so I took it out to examine it. When I shook it, something rattled. I got excited for a second but then I realized it was just an old cork that was inside, so I grabbed it and pulled it out. But something was still rattling—there was a piece of paper in there, tightly folded up. I was immediately intrigued—could it be a secret message? Directions to treasure? A cry for help? A love note? The possibilities were endless, but they ended when I extracted the paper with tweezers, unfolded it breathlessly, and realized that it was blank. WHO DOES THIS? Who would put a blank piece of paper into an antique salt shaker?! A friend suggested that maybe the message was written in invisible ink, but when I held a lighter up to it, it burned like any other stupid piece of paper. What a letdown.

3) Ken and I decided to rearrange our living room a bit and get a larger bookcase. He was going to build one, but with the price of wood, we decided to try buying one secondhand first, which meant a foray into Facebook Marketplace. One of the first posts to pop up was for a fairly simple wall unit listed for $150.

When I scrolled down to the description, it said this: “No idea how big it is.” Seriously? How do you have a piece of furniture and be at a complete loss as to its size? If only there was an easy way to find out. So here are some suggestions, QUINN:

A) You can measure it with a measuring tape.
B) You don’t have a measuring tape? Borrow one from a friend.
C) You don’t have any friends? I’m not surprised, given your lack of interest in things like measurement. But you could try frame of reference, like, ‘I’m 6 feet tall and it’s slightly shorter than me, and when I lie down, it’s slightly longer than me.”
D) You don’t know how tall you are? Go to a local convenience store and stand next to the entrance. There’s a height bar RIGHT THERE.

At any rate, we bought a very nice shelving unit from a man who had taken the time to discover its dimensions all on his own. And now my living room is in chaos as we move things around and have to sell a china cabinet. I wonder how tall it is…?

43 thoughts on “Made To Measure”

  2. It’s possible I may have mentioned this in your BOOBS post, but when my old Neon hit 100,000 miles… I was driving down the highway at about 70 mph in the middle of the night on a road trip to Oklahoma. That didn’t stop me from taking the picture of the odometer (with a real flash camera!) without ever slowing down! Kids, don’t try this at home!

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  3. Congrats on your mileage milestones, Suzanne. I can’t say I’ve ever paid attention to those numbers though I track my miles-per-gallon as if it’s an Olympic event. 🙂 And congrats on your new wall unit no matter the size. Happy Sunday!

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  6. It’s curious to note that given the size of your tires and even the thickness of your tread, your milestone might have come some days ago, or perhaps, is still yet to occur. What’s the next word you can spell with your mileage (klick-age) meter?

    Have you not watched National Treasure? You were supposed to use a reagent first, and then apply heat. And of course, your only recourse is to write another note which includes a cryptocurrency hash into which you’ve stored 1000, currently worthless, RummageCoins, stuff it back into the shaker and return it to the cupboard.

    My go-to measuring device when I don’t have a measuring device is a sheet of paper. 11 pinky knuckles tall by 8.5 knuckles wide.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply
  7. barbaramullenix says:

    Ah yes. I remember your BOOBS post fondly. As far as the paper in the salt shaker – I think people do that to prevent moisture build up so that the lid doesn’t corrode – it absorbs the moisture. I’m not sure it works if there’s salt inside, but some people put rice in with the salt. I’ve never seen the point.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  8. I walk a lot. Whenever I see pieces of paper on the ground, I pick them up to see what they say. They’re usually receipts or shopping lists. Once, though, the paper said in red ink, stay or go, three times. Always wondered if it was discarded from when the Clash was writing their song. Or maybe someone trying to decide to leave a relationship, go to college, or move away. Or maybe they just had the song stuck in their head.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  10. Mystery sal shaker with invisible message….🤔. Maybe it has a message written on it but faded? Nice salt shaker though. Its unbelievable how many people don’t know how to do common sense stuff. Like iPhones have a measuring app…hello? But I must say that wall unit is quite a find. I’ve been trying to find something similar since I moved into my house, no luck yet 🙄.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  11. There seems to be a running theme of dealing with measurements this week, with the mysterious message in the salt shaker being an exception. And I believe there was a mysterious message in there at one time but I know ink tends to fade. I know this because I had a baseball signed by Bob Feller that my grandfather gave me. I put it in a box in the attic for several years and when I pulled it out again I had…a baseball.
    I don’t know if there’s any way to recover the message. It may have long since been absorbed by the salt, but perhaps a seance would do it. Or a salt-ance.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  14. I have recently found myself reading the digital clock on our stove as letters (when they appear) instead of numbers. If I look at the clock at 5:15 on any given day I know it’s a day to call my SIS(ter).

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  16. coincidentally, we’re readying for my brother-in-law to stay for a while with us, hence redecorating & getting rid of stuff to accommodate a new bedroom — I seriously wanted to be like that guy. so lazy I know. I wonder if he sold his…

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  17. There’s a film with the line, “I respect your dedication to mediocrity”, and I thought of that when reading about the Shelf Seller. I kind of respect that unapologetic refusal to find out what EVERY buyer would want to know and then believe you can still sell it.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s