How Big Is His Mansion?
“New house eh!”
“Yes indeed. I worked hard for this mansion man.”
“How big is it?”
“It has a four garages, tennis …”
“How big is it?”
The new owner doesn’t know because he bought it for things he needs, and the location, of course. The answer to the question about size should be square footage. Is it 2,00 sq feet? Is that how big mansions are? I don’t know. I don’t understand this square footage thing. Real estate agents pepper their selling script with footage, but I doubt if they themselves understand what a square foot is. Another thing, why a square? When I say stay three feet away from me, you know how far you should be. Remember the pandemic?
I smell a rat. Why is distance - from here to there - measured in feet, plain feet, but houses and stores, in square feet? Yes indeed, business people become frustrated when they want to rent a shop in the mall or strip mall. They must do calculations on their cellphones because the shop they want might be $20 per square foot and they need, let’s say, 500 square feet. All they want, is a medium size corner shop with secure parking and accessibility e.g. along a busy bus route. Not all customers have cars.
How did square footage come about? I don’t think it’s the shape because not all houses are square. As for me, I’m comfortable with circles because I come from a long line of daughters of the sun, the original circle. I was born in Africa, where the sun keeps watch 365 days a year. We learned in school that there are places in the world where they don’t see the sun for weeks. That’s so hard to imagine. Maybe that’s where square footage comes from. The opposite of a circle is square. Right? Ha! Ha!
Nonqaba waka Msimang
Blogger Without Borders
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