Actually… they already did.
And they do it every day.

I grew up with a pretty good sense of time.
And with time came distance.
And with distance came measurement.

I could look at something way off and tell you how far away it was—
a couple hundred yards… a mile… close enough to matter.

I spent a lot of years running track.
Track is all about precision.
Hit your mark. Hit your pace. Hit it again.

That carried over into golf—
judging distance to the green, the bunker, the water.
Problem was… I wasn’t very good at the hitting part.

Then came printing and copying.
Now we’re talking inches. Fractions. Margins.
Because when you’re working on an 8½ × 11 sheet,
moving something a quarter inch isn’t “a little”—it’s everything.

Track is precision.
Golf and printing are execution.

Then I got into residential construction.

And that’s when I learned…

This business lies.

Not bends the truth.
Not exaggerates.

Flat-out lies.

All my life I heard “2×4” and figured—like a normal human being—that meant 2 inches by 4 inches.

You know… like numbers.

Like 1 + 1 = 2

Nope.

A 2×4 is actually 1½ by 3½.

So right out of the gate,
I’m already working with 25% less wood than advertised.

Feels a little like ordering a large pizza
and getting a medium with confidence.

But wait—it gets better.

Now you measure your totally-not-2×4,
mark your cut,
and grab your square…

…which isn’t square.

It’s a triangle.

So now I’m using a triangle
to square off a board
that isn’t the size that it’s advertised as.

At this point, I’m just hoping gravity is still real.

Then you grab a level—
and to their credit…
they finally got one right.

It tells you if things are level.
It’s called a level.

Low bar, but I appreciate the honesty.

So there I am—
cutting fake lumber with a triangle
to make sure everything lines up
in a world where measurements are apparently just suggestions.

I spent my whole life trusting numbers.

Turns out…
construction is where numbers go to lie.

And honestly?

I’m a little nervous
about what they’re going to tell me a “foot” is next.

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