Perfection

Last night, I had a fascinating experience at the grocery store. But first, the back story.

I got up at 5:30 yesterday morning. I quickly worked out, took a shower, got ready, woke up two kids, got them ready for school, and was out the door at 7. I got to work at 8. I think I sat down three times today, and once was to shovel food in my mouth before running around for another few hours. At 4, I was finally done, left work, picked kids up from school and realized - we have no food at the house. (Remember back to how I mentioned that I really hate the daily grind)

Okay on with the story. The dreaded trip to Wal-mart was in the cards. We arrived at Walmart at 4:45. We quickly rushed through the store, throwing this and that and some more of this into the cart at an amazingly rapid rate. I happened to check the time as we approached the check out line, it was 5:27. Pretty good time right? That's what I was thinking.

With only one lady in front of me, and her conveyor belt of food almost empty - I felt pretty optimistic about getting home before 6. And so, it is our turn. We are greeted by the cashier, an older lady with nothing that read friendly. She radiated an aura of "I take my job very seriously". Which is cool...we all have to do it.

And then...the checking and bagging began. And I watched in mixed horror and fascination. She sorted through each item I purchased. Every container of raw meat was individually wrapped and then bagged together. If something appeared possibly cold, it was felt and sorted by weight, size, and coldness. Dry items were sorted and set aside. When bags started to fill, they were lightly lifted to check the weight of the bag. When they reached a maximum load, each and every bag was then double bagged, to ensure they did not rip. My groceries were completely and perfectly bagged.

And I finally walked away at 6:07p.m.


I was irritated..and tired...and kept thinking that I still had to go home and carry all these groceries in and then put them away.

But as I drove home - I really got to thinking. When did perfection become inconvenient? When did "good enough" become good enough? This lady was extremely good at her job, which happened to cause me to lose time and energy, and I was annoyed with her for it. I felt very humbled by the time I got home, and as I unloaded my perfectly wrapped bananas and quadruple wrapped chicken breasts, I realized that I settle for good enough way to often.

How often do you settle for good enough? Does perfection ever annoy you? Or maybe you have some crazy perfectionist tendency that drives other people crazy? I'd love to hear it!