Household Obedience

Quote of the day:
"We all have strength enough to endure the troubles of others."
--Francois VI, duke de la Rouchefoucauld (1655)

Some of us are much more obedient than others.

Witness: some of us meticulously follow operating instructions. Others skip instructions and just start assembling or using something, figuring it can’t be that hard. Besides, reading instructions takes time. And I don’t have time. I’m busy.

Sometimes skipping instructions turns out ok. Just as often, we have to start over with the instructions next to us.

Some folks carefully measure ingredients and otherwise follow recipes to the letter. Others take pride in putting together some of this, a little of that, and maybe some of that, too.

As always, most of us are somewhere between these extremes. We learn from experience that sometimes instructions leave steps out. I remember how amused my father was years ago when he was reading repair instructions in a service manual. The first step: “remove transmission from car.”

We learn also that things don’t always appear in real life the way they are described or depicted in an instruction book. So, using our experience, we adapt a little. Or a lot.

As for recipes, some adaptation is always required. How many times have you exactly followed a recipe and things didn’t turn out quite right?

Only we know the idiosyncracies of our oven or stove. We know our tastes and we suspect that is way too much or way too little garlic.

Also, recipes are usually written with the first objective of not over-preparing or over-cooking, so they deliberately underestimate preparation and cooking time. I guess the logic is that we can always stir, knead or roast a little more. But we can’t do these things a little less once we’ve done them.

Kind of like life.

Related applicable cliche: “You can’t unring a bell.”