cultivate habit
not being particular
about little things
Adapted from the essay, Tripping Over Trivia by Damon Runyon as published in Short Takes, Readers’ Choice of the Best Columns of America’s Favorite Newspaperman, Damon Runyon (Constable, Orange Street London, 1948.)
I am trying to cultivate the habit of not being particular about little things. I suppose that after years of being very particular, indeed, I will find it difficult to shake off some of my old exactions, but I must keep struggling. I have come to the conclusion that I have been wasting an enormous amount of time in being particular.
Take the small matter of boiled eggs. I used to be mighty particular about how long my boiled eggs should be boiled. I made a strong point of specifying that they should be boiled three minutes and a half. I had the idea that I could not even look at eggs boiled less than that time or two seconds beyond. The cooks could not fool me, either, though sometimes I suspected they exerted the most diabolical ingenuity in the effort. I could tell to a clock-tick how long they had boiled eggs the instant they were set before me.
One day I sat down and seriously contemplated the economic phases of the boiled egg situation as applied to me. I considered, through careful calculation, the hours I must have wasted in arguing with waiters that those eggs had not been boiled three and a half minutes, but only two and a half, or maybe four, and in sending them back to the kitchen and then waiting for another boiling.
When my figures showed that on being particular about my boiled eggs alone I had wasted fifteen years, I was appalled. It was then I made up my mind to cease being particular. I immediately made some progress on the boiled eggs. I began calling for them scrambled.
Mr. Runyon may be more well known for his musical Guys and Dolls, often thought to be THE American Musical ( up against Oklahoma and the Music Man).
In Guys and Dolls, the Hero Skye Masterson says:
On the day when I left home to make my way in the world, my Daddy took me to one side. ‘Son,’ my Daddy says to me, ‘I am sorry I am not able to bankroll you to a very large start, but not having the necessary lettuce to get you rolling, instead I’m going to stake you to some very valuable advice.
One of these days in your travels, a guy is going to show you a brand-new deck of cards on which the seal is not yet broken. Then this guy is going to offer to bet you that he can make the jack of spades jump out of this brand-new deck of cards and squirt cider in your ear. But, son, you do not accept this bet, because as sure as you stand there, you’re going to wind up with an ear full of cider.
Friends and neighbors, I woke up Wednesday morning and let me tell you friends, I had an ear full of cider!
Time to start calling for scrambled eggs!
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