Upon Learning The Metric System

Oh boy.  Metrics.  Why is this so hard for Americans?  The entire universe uses it but we don't. And I know why.  Hah!  WHY? you query?  I will enlighten you.  It is because the metric system is based on growing up with weird things like litres and millimetres.  Liters here.  Who actually knows how much a liter is?  Nobody.  And MM's?  Aren't those candy?  So, a few days ago I made a Fire Mountain order... more on this later.  The catalog said...Oh boy! Buy black buna cord!  Great price!  Ok, I'm in.  I buy 25M of black buna cord.  Do I have ANY idea of how much 25M is?  I do not.  Nobody does.  Europeans guess.  :)  Americans get the twitches.  

So, my 25M arrives.  I now have enough black buna cord to wrap the entire island.  Who is that guy who wraps buildings?  I can wind this stuff around 'Oahu.  And what am I going to do with this?  Hmmm,  I can string some exceedingly cool clay goodies.  But WAIT!  If I use buna cord... I need the infamous O rings, right?  

Do NOT get me started.  Any of you try to buy buna AND O rings?  It is a government conspiracy, I tell you.  You can buy 25M of 2MM buna but NOBODY tells you that you can buy the O rings that actually go with this.  You can buy O rings that come in scrawny MM's.  I know, I now own 1000 of them.  Did the person at FM know if they fit the 2MM buna that she sells? She did not.  Not her fault.  FM has 1.4 trillion items. Most if them in metrics.  And, do they even call this black 2MM stuff buna?  Nope.  It's something else.  With O rings that don't match. Skinny, scrawny, emaciated, thin, pathetic, feeble O rings.

  

Unless you know both the inside AND the outside diameter.  DiaMETER!  Arrrrggghhhh!  See? And, on top of that, I am thinking these O rings will be normal chubby fat cute little O rings that everyone uses on their inro and such.  Harrumph.  I get 1 billion emaciated O rings. PROBABLY they will fit my 25M, 2MM buna (maybe) cord.  But, they are so skinny, I will have to use about 40 of them just so people can see them.  I am O ring challenged.  I am buna challenged.  I am METRIC challenged!

But, I promised you the skinny (hah!  think O rings) on Fire Mountain.  Other than metrics, they do good.  I ordered just a few days ago and got my order today!  I was happy.  They have great stuff.  Great prices.  The only caveat I have is... don't return anything.  I have returned a few things over the last couple years.  Sometimes they know I have returned things and adjust.  Mostly I have to say... did you get my return?  They say... hunh?  I don't see anything here.  

Swell.  Now, in their defense, each time I have returned something and had to remind them I did, they fixed it forthwith.  But, the catch is, you have to remember you returned it and watch to see that they adjust your bill.  Luckily, they are a super company and I have only had to return stuff about 4 times.  And it wasn't because they made an error.  Well... other than the pasta machine from hell.  But, more on that another day.  :D