Lost in Translation

A rose by any other name may be just as sweet, but the same cannot be said of temperatures.

I am currently on a job site in Canada. Those of you who are not Americans will naturally understand this, but for the benefit of those who are let me explain that in Canada they use a different system of weights and measures than that employed in the States. Canada has embraced the metric system, and there are some potentially dangerous differences between Centigrade temperatures and the Fahrenheit numeric equivalent.

Last night I thought it might be pleasurable to partake of the in room sauna. One hundred twenty degrees seemed warm, but not intolerably so. After about ten minutes of pre-heating I stepped in.

The first thing I noticed was the difficulty breathing. Hot, dry air has that effect so I was not terribly surprised. Alternating between searing my nasal passages and drying the inside of my mouth I managed to take in enough oxygen to stave off unconsciousness.

Soon after, I noticed my ears were hurting. Everyone is familiar with that pain in the ear canal experienced on a cold Winter day. This pain was the same, but there was a decided lack of chill in the air. After a few more minutes of tolerating the discomfort I finally removed my glasses - and quickly dropped them as the metal frames were burning my fingers. Ear problem solved!

Increasingly uncomfortable, gasping for air, and no longer able to see as well as I might hope, I persevered. I was going to enjoy my full thirty minutes doggone it! Shifting on the bench I returned to the book I had brought with me to pass the time. Two pages passed. Three pages. Five. At last it could no longer be denied: The book was strangely unpleasant to be holding. Not quite burning my fingers perhaps, but closer than any book should ever come to doing so.

Enough was enough. With ten minutes remaining in my planned half hour of relaxation I admitted defeat and fled the sauna.

As I cooled off a short while later with a beer and a bathtub full of hot water, it occurred to me that the sauna thermostat was calibrated for Centigrade, not Fahrenheit. A slow, and belated, conversion confirmed what I should have realized all along.

One hundred twenty degrees Centigrade, far from being slightly uncomfortable, is a blistering two hundred forty-eight degrees in "real" temperature!