The Tape

I can read a tape measure down to the inch. After that it's a forest. There are lines of four different lengths, and nobody has ever told me which one is the sixteenth.

I count the little lines from the inch mark. For the same board I've gotten seven, nine, and eight. I've held the pencil to the tape and then moved the tape, which I'm told is wrong.

When I need a board cut, I go to the lumber yard on Dunbar, where Gil does it for a quarter a cut. I give him a number. “Thirty-one and a half, I think. Or a quarter.” He measures with a tape that looks exactly like mine, cuts it, and writes a number on the board in black marker. He underlines it.

It's never the number I said. Last time I asked for thirty-one and a half, and he wrote 31 7/16. I told him that was fine. He said, “I know.”

I've bought nineteen boards from him and they've all fit. I still couldn't tell you what the number means. But he's the only person I know who has never once asked what I need it for.