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.
I’ve personally faced the cracker conundrum before. Leftover brie feels odd, because you shouldn’t just throw it in the fridge and forget about it. If that ever happens, I’m obligated to buy some more crackers the next day.
Leftover crackers are fine though, because they have a long shelf life. Brie doesn’t.
However, you can always put an extra thick layer of brie on a salt cracker to make the numbers match. However, if they’re grossly mismatched, it’s better to have leftover crackers IMO.