A ruler is for measuring and drawing straight lines. I learned that in kindergarten. Then all I had learned no longer seemed true. I entered into a different world, one in which a ruler was something the same and yet altogether different. It started two years before with her simple request for a square ruler.
Rulers are long and skinny and if they're really long, then they're a yardstick.
I didn't know what a stick a meter long was called, even if it was spelled metre. So, maybe it was a meter stick or metre stick. I asked her. Ha, I said to myself. Something odd was going on.