Sisterchicks Go Brit! by Robin Jones Gunn

Author:Robin Jones Gunn [Gunn, Robin Jones]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-56143-5
Publisher: The Doubleday Religious Publishing Group
Published: 2008-03-20T16:00:00+00:00

I liked our room. I didn’t mind not having a view. I thought the setup was perfect for us in every way. “So what do you want to do first?”

“Are you hungry?” Kellie asked.

“Are you kidding? Not after the two cups of tea we just had in the lobby and how many cookies did we eat?”

“Only five or six.”

“Seven or eight, you mean.”

“Hey, we’re on vacation, Liz. Seven and eight are vacation numbers. They don’t mean the same thing in foreign countries as they do at home. Time is different here, so why can’t numbers be different too?”

I laughed. “So are you saying that eight cookies in England are equal to …”

“Two cookies of a similar kind in America,” Kellie concluded.

“I like your logic.”

“It’s simple conversion, you know, like the way we have to convert the British pound into what it equals in U.S. dollars.”

“We could call it ‘travel math,’ ” I suggested.

“Hey, I like that! We should make up a chart. Such-and-such number in England is really equal to this number in the United States. And it will, of course, always be a lower number, like the difference between gallons and liters.”

“Why not? Who needs the metric system? We have our own system. Travel math!”

Kellie and I got going, as we often did, and tried to out-pun each other with our new inside joke about reassigning the value of all calories with our travel math. The theory that eight tea biscuits equaled one Oreo gave us our first standard of measurement.

“You know”—I reached for my collection of travel info—“I’m not sure I printed it out, but while I was doing research, I found a chart online that said how to figure out your weight in the British system.”

“It’s not the same as our scales with pounds?”

“No, pounds is their money, remember?”

“Oh, that’s right. So how do they weigh things?”

“In stones.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No. I think the ratio is something like fourteen U.S. pounds on a weight scale is equal to one stone.”

“Really? I could live with that.”

“The drawback is that the shoe sizes start in the thirties and go up. I calculated my size before we came, and I wear a size forty shoe.”

Kellie laughed. “So you’re saying that with our travel math you weigh about eleven stone, and yet your feet won’t fit into anything less than a forty shoe.”

“You got it.” In my best Ebb-and-Flo voice, I put on a little show for Kellie using my two hands as puppets. “ ‘Good day, Lady Flo. How’s your weight today?’ ‘Oh, Lady Ebb, I’m up to eleven today after that last biscuit.’ ‘Eleven, you say? That’s a lovely number, don’t you think?’ ‘Oh, not at all. I’m trying to get down to ten and half so I don’t rip out the backside of my pants.’ ‘Oh, Lady Flo, you’re such a kidder. That would never happen to you!’ ”

Kellie rolled over on her back on the bed and let out all her pent-up giggles. “Liz, you’re such a good sport.

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