You’re on a long train journey that lasts several hours, maybe most of the day. You brought simple food with you: slices of bread and slices of cheese, plus some ice tea to drink. Nothing fancy. You don’t count how many slices of either you brought. You don’t even think about it, because train journeys are cool and you’re just chilling out. You just assemble cheese sandwiches one by one, eat them during the trip, and enjoy the ride. Each sandwich uses exactly one slice of bread and one slice of cheese. When one of them runs out, the sandwich-making stops. You arrive at your destination and, naturally, the numbers didn’t line up perfectly. I mean, why would they…
Now you open your bag and discover that something is left over:
• either a few slices of bread with no cheese, or
• a few slices of cheese with no bread.
Which one would be worse? Standing there at the end of the trip, one of these outcomes just feels more annoying than the other, right?
Which leftover would bother you more, and why? Is it purely practical? Emotional? About mess, smell, value, or expectations? Or do you genuinely not care either way? I’m curious how different people experience this.
When I’m at the deli, I tend to order by the slice so that I have exactly the right amount of everything for the sandwiches I plan to make.
Ultimately, I wouldn’t blindly throw cheese and bread in a bag to bring along on a trip. I would only count out the exact amounts I need. However, if I made a mistake and there was an imbalance, it would not be an issue because I have no problem eating either bread or cheese on its own.
I am realizing right now that my daughter would consider all of that to be evidence of autism. Which I still deny because I have not been diagnosed as being on the spectrum. In my opinion, it’s just rational sandwich planning.
Ha ha, my wife accused me of that as well, because of this exact scenario.
…. But eating sandwiches is very predictable: why wouldn’t you order exactly the slices you need for a week?