Pounds. No sense.

So I'm helping one of the little Pinatas with homework. Last week he had to do some homework where he was converting between various measurements of customary units. First off, I had no idea what customary units were when he asked me about them. Then, I was stumped when he started asking me how many ounces were in a gallon, how many cups were in a pint, and how many teaspoons were in a quart. Honestly, I still have no idea.

And then, today, he had homework on the metric system. You remember, it was the system we were supposed to convert to in, like, 1986 or something? See, pretty much everyone in the world switched over, except for three countries. (You'll see the world map with the three uncoverted countries up there. It puts our great nation in the august company of Liberia and Myanmar - otherwise known as Burma - as nonconverts.)

And it's just so dang simple:

1,000mm = 1m
100cm = 1m
1dm = 1m
1000m = 1km

Do you know how long it took me to explain this to my son? Oh, let's see...maybe three minutes? And then he went off and did his homework with no problem. Cups? Ounces? Gallons? Ugh.

I like a pint as much as the next guy, but I'm willing to trade that for 750ml any day.