Pounds vs. Kilos: A Mistake I Will Never Make Again

Last weekend I went to the market to purchase my meat for the month of March. At the end of every month I plan a tentative menu for the following month. This helps a great deal to ensure my husband and I are having a variety of foods and not over indulging in the heartier meals. My grocery list included 6 lbs. of ground turkey. Not bad for the month!

I went to the market that morning with two other ladies who are both pretty fluent French speakers. Everything is served and made in kilos here, not pounds. On my grocery list I wrote 6 lbs / 12 kilos and that is what I told the girls to relay to the butcher. They told him we would pick it up after we came from the other end of the market to buy fruits and vegetables. The butcher looked at us with sort of a weird smile before he took off to the back room. The girls and I must have spent no more than 30 minutes buying our produce. My bag was starting to touch the ground from all those heavy fruits and veggies I packed inside.

We returned to the butcher and he gave me the receipt for everything. It read 6000 dinar. That's approximately $76.  I thought to myself, “That is pretty darn steep for 6 lbs. of ground turkey.” Then the man came from around the corner with two large and extremely heavy bags of meat that he placed into my hands. My mouth dropped! All three of us thought wow, that’s a lot of turkey. While the other girls were getting their orders I stood there for a few minutes thinking something wasn’t right. The girls thought the man must have misunderstood the amount of meat they requested. I looked back at my grocery list and showed the girls the number I wrote on my paper. Well don’t you know this is why I will NEVER be an accountant and quickly changed my college major from business to communication after taking my first Statistics class! 12 kilos does not equate to 6 pounds. 12 kilos converts to 26.5 pounds! What the heck???? I was now carrying damn near 27 pounds of ground turkey in my bag. I couldn’t believe I switched the conversion around like that. 1 kilo equals 2.2 pounds. I was relieved that I actually had enough money available to purchase the meat. Otherwise, we may not have made it out of that underground market safely. They were going to get their money one way or the other. To top it off I also ordered 20 chicken breasts for the month. I purchased more than usual since I was hosting a farewell dinner for one of the Marines the following day. With the weight of all the meat, fruits, and veggies, I could barely carry those bags out of the market. I actually pulled a muscle in my left oblique on the way home. I learned a valuable lesson - I should never be responsible for helping our future children with any type of math problems.

This is what 26 pounds of meat looks like after I individually wrapped each pound. Two pounds were already removed for me to prepare turkey sausage patties. My husband was not upset, but would have been much happier if that were 26 pounds of beef on our kitchen counter opposed to turkey.