Centimetres

Random dictionary word time!  Hmmm maybe not. “Centimetres”
How am I supposed to write around 500 words on centimetres.  Never has a page seemed so long!  29.7 centimetres actually.  Or wide! 21 centimetres but who’s counting.   All I know is I am about 173 centimetres tall and have no idea what that is in kilometres.
Still, centimetres it is.  Or “centimetro” as they say in Spain.  This could be done at like snails pace.  Like 1000 centimetres an hour.  I actually think that may be slower than a snails pace.  Makes me wonder what a snail does when it gets a fright and wants to get away really quickly.  All relative I suppose.  I reckon I would see the drama unfold before my eyes like in slow, slow slow, motion.
But centimetre is the word so I will need to wrack my brain….that was quick.  But I won’t tell anyone.  Ponder, ponder, ponder.  A centimetre is defined as “a metric unit of length.”  No help at all really.  Except it makes me feel good that that was something I did know.
I do wonder though what they call a centipede in the US which has not embraced a metric system.  Do they call it an inchpede?  And what about inchworms?  Here are they 2.54 centimetre worms?  So many questions.  So little time.
Merril knows stuff.  She told me it was a French word.  I feel like I should say it now dressed in a black and white horizontally stripped shirt and address others as Mademoiselle and Manure.  Something does not look right there.
A distinct advantage centimetres have over inches in my mind is it sounds a lot further.  I may jump about 315 inches.  Yet I have jumped 800 centimetres.  Sounds way further.  Though when travelling in the car, distances sound greater.  I would definitely feel more inclined to stop for a coffee when travelling using the metric system.
Of course Wikipedia covers the topic in detail.  Maybe too much detail.  I was suddenly drowsy when I read “A centimetre (international spelling) or centimeter (American spelling) (SI symbol cm) is a unit of length in the International System of Units (SI), equal to one hundredth of a metre, centi being the SI prefix for a factor of 1/100. The centimetre was the base unit of length in the now deprecated centimetre–gram–second (CGS) system of units.”
Though I could be offended.  When I looked up centimetre it said, “for broader coverage of this topic see metre.”  I mean what is wrong with centimetre?  Does it not measure up? (as it were)
It also said, “not to be confused with millimetre.”  As if.  Merril advertising the freezer as 2,500 centimetres was an honest mistake.
But I have learned to live with centimetres.  They are like an unseen presence.  Everywhere I go they are there.  Even where I am not, I have, a feeling they are there in a lot of places.  The good thing is though, when I need them, I can call on them.