Road trip! With a week’s vacation beckoning me I packed my bags, filled the gas tank, alerted the neighbors, and watered the garden deeply enough, fingers crossed, to last an entire week. All I had left to do was to pack some road snacks.
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Ginger kombucha, check. Opal apples—2 medium, check. sliced English cheddar, check and check. Dry roasted almonds, organic cherries, black olives, pecan rice crackers—they all fit in the bag. But with no room left I still wanted to add more stuff. Out of space and what to do? I wanted to include more than my insulated lunch carrier would hold and wouldn’t take no for an answer. The bag protested and darn if the zipper didn’t break in my struggle to load the bag beyond its capacity.
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Where am I breaking zippers in more important areas of my life? Am I trying to fit too much in and forcing something to its breaking point? Road trips are a great time to contemplate such things.
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I realized how quickly I tend to justify this behavior when the ingredients are good. All the items I crammed into my lunch bag were healthy things, mostly organic even. Its not like I was packing cotton candy, Slim Jims, and glazed donuts after all. But, the zipper that I forced didn’t know that. The zipper that eventually broke didn’t know and didn’t care. To my insulated bag, too much was too much. Period.
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Sometimes enough is enough and “full” is a good place to stop. Breaking zippers is a pretty good indication of that, don’t you think?