Be still.

Measure twice. I forget the rest. If I seem a little distracted, it’s because Wife has me measuring wall lengths, window heights and closet depths in the house we are hoping to buy. The only problem is that I never knew just how terrible I was at using a measuring tape. That is, until now. Either the tape goes limp, or crooked, or I finally get a reading only to have the tape snap back into the housing and smart my delicate little fingers. Hasn’t somebody developed special measuring lasers that do this for you? If land surveyors can measure plot lines just by looking through one of those weird tripod binoculars, by extension, shouldn’t I be able to measure a bedroom by looking through a kaleidoscope or something equally whimsical? What about seeing-eye dogs? Don’t they have excellent spacial sensibilities? I’m totally picturing a black lab named Chip sniffing around the living room for a few minutes before barking the exact measurements of all the dry-wall jogs, thresholds and other appropriate household objects. Sconces? Are sconces a thing that people have in houses? Maybe Chip could also throw in some estimates, in bark-form of course, of what it would take to do a floor-to-ceiling remodel. But perhaps I’m getting ahead of myself. After all, dogs can only do so much before they get antsy and have to go outside to do You Know What. For now, I’ll just have to settle for a bunch of sore fingers and a floppy measuring tape that refuses to obey my commands. Stay! Bad tape! Bad, bad tape!