Important futilities

Sometimes what we do seems to be unduly influenced by what appears to be utterly futile. Is that as unwise as it seems?

Last Saturday was Luka’s 6th birthday. We had some balloons to decorate the house, and for just £1 my wife had bought a self-assembly garland with cardboard flags spelling “Happy Birthday”. But when we opened the pack, all it contained was just enough letters to make the word “pitday”. Return it to the shop and ask for a replacement?

The item was clearly not suitable for purpose, but the idea of returning a faulty product bought for the futile sum of £1 felt, well, a bit petty. What if we made up the missing flags ourselves with cardboard, markers, and a pair of scissors? That sounded even crazier, so I set off to the nearby shop anyway to purchase another, hopefully complete, garland, with no mention of the faulty one. It would surely look better than anything we’d concoct ourselves, and well worth the cost of just a pound — a no brainer, really.

Not all futilities are perceived equal

Earlier that morning I had popped into the local fishmongers on my way back from the baker’s shop in the next town (they sell the kind of bread for which I am quite happy to drive the extra mile). Now, the fishmonger’s street is…