When I graduated from sewing garments to creating quilts, I had to swallow the pill of smaller seams. I balked at the notion of a quarter of an inch, but now it seems normal. If you know what I mean. 

 

For a brief period I delved into miniatures, which require, gulp, eighth inch margins between the stitches and the edge. That leaves no room for wobble. But I complied. 

 

Benjamin and I have continued our morning routine of playing Equate, which is a scrabble like game using numbers. We have no interest in score keeping, though we adhere to the other rules for the most part. After a week I noticed his tendency to swap my tiles out for other versions of the same digit. I didn't comment, but I was curious. Finally I compared them and realized that the fonts were not consistent. Some were a sixteenth of an inch bigger than others. Ben was seeking to make my equations uniform. As a favor. If the other numbers were seven sixteenths, he believed that they should all be. 

 

I smiled. 

 

There is no whiff of criticism in his actions. He is under the impression that the world works better when things line up, which is why he straightens the merchandise as we shop. This would make him a reliable stocker, if we can get over the inconvenience of coworkers. 

 

People who live under the same roof sometimes cross boundaries by fixing each other's mistakes. If a variation in font size can be characterized as such. But some of us get feisty with such tweaking. When John shows me a more efficient way to slice lettuce, I can be grateful or I can be miffed. I will leave such odds to your imagination.