A tailor measured Arthur for a new suit. “Chest forty, waist thirty-eight,” she said.
Arthur looked delighted. “My waist was forty last month. The walks are working.”
She checked her notes and measured him again. Thirty-eight.
“There,” Arthur said. “I knew it.”
The tailor held up the tape. Its first two inches were missing.
“This is my old tape,” she said.
Arthur’s face fell. “So I haven’t lost two inches?”
“You might have,” she said. “But the tape hasn’t learned where to start.”