Metric Disconnect

 It was an incident that, thinking more about it now, would be the hallmark of tremendous disconnect between the education system and reality. I had been sent to buy nails, and as you know, nails – just like certain influential male organs – come in inches. Not millimeters. And certainly not centimeters. That would be grossly demeaning to nails and the organ, who may write nasty comments if you do so.

I was in high school at the time (and on holiday) and seeing that I didn’t have much to do except loaf time, it was deemed that I was fit to run the small errand to Flax Centre to purchase nails. There was a little construction project going on, and as constructions are wont, certain materials suddenly become sparse or are suddenly needed.

“Three inches,” they said even though I had heard the fundi say it. I hauled my juvenile self, neither with ambitions nor hurry. It seemed a minor inconvenience, but the prospect of keeping change acted as the only motivator. Also, the project had stalled because of the slight. The nails were needed in a hurry.

After three kilometres (where did those who use miles learn it from? Movies?) of walking, I was at the hardware. I asked for a kilo of three inch nails. The attendant weighed them, handed them to me, I paid and began the long walk back home. Even if they were not needed that day, I still would have gone back regardless, because there were no suave ways of idling back them. There were, but I was not good at them.

I got home and delivered them to the fundis. One quickly rummaged through and announced grimly, ‘it’s a girl.’ Just kidding. He said that I got the wrong nails…not the wrong nails actually – it’s not that there are yellow nails or nails za kienyeji – but the wrong inches. The inches were nearly double than they ones they wanted.

I think that must have been the only time I felt good when one of them acknowledged our ignorance in a way that detached responsibility from my actions. “These young people do not know anything,” they said as though distinguishing three and five inches required the same intellectual depth as neurosurgery. As far as they fundis were concerned my knowledge of important things such as inches competed favourably with mucus.

Even then, I was perfectly willing to correct the anomaly by trekking back three kilometres. However, the fundis showed tremendous fortitude by improvising. They were in a hurry to get the project done, hit a drinking den, and probably brag about how people like me were clueless about inches.

“I thought he was intelligent, but he brought six inches instead of three,” one will say amid an uproar of laughter.

“How can one not distinguish between an inch and two inches?” a fellow drunkard, well versed with matters inches, will as ask.

I am not ashamed to say that they answer to that question is me, and I have plenty of reasons to back it up. We never learnt about inches in primary school. I have no memory attached to inches back in primary. This is special because I spent most of my last years in primary school pensive and a nervous wreck converting milimetres to centimetres and to metres. And vice versa. At no point in my life did inches feature. I do not remember being whacked because I could not correctly convert from inches to any of those aforementioned metric terms.

Even then, if the guy who had sold me the nails knew what inches were, he could have given me the correct ones. I guess he was as clueless as me. Either that or he was desperate to make a sale. It is not really a one man’s blame. It is two.

If you think like I do, then you must be wondering why what is taught in school cannot be applied in real life. Even metric system yawa. You can excuse learning about the hypotenuse or trapezium, but not something as vital and life-giving – if you get my drift - as inches. Another stupid one is foot. I haven’t got the hang of it.  and miles too.

Every time someone uses metric terms I did not learn in school I feel like smacking them in the face to atone for the beatings I endured back in school. Trust me, there is nothing as torturous as the thought that all your years of schooling were up to nothing. It is even much worse if you spent a few years getting so scared of being wrong – a small wrong would earn you an unforgettable beating. It does not do justice to the moments spent tucking your hands between your legs, trembling and your teeth clattering every time you were in class. All that and you were not taught about inches?!!? Gerrarahia!!