If you’ve ever worked with CSS, you’ve probably felt this feeling of slowly bubbling anger, ultimately exploding in an animated series of profanity and shaking of the laptop.  Unfortunately, unlike our friend Peter, we cannot just rip it apart with the same satisfaction.

On my current project, there have been multiple instances of this, all seemingly as simple as pulling the blinds up and down.  This morning, I felt this way again trying to close the lid on a Starbucks mug my friend gave me.  Try as I might, the lid kept going in crooked, and I swore I just closed it the other day!

After 5 minutes of spilling and asking the mug why it won’t close, I finally took the time to step back and think rationally.  I investigated the threads on the lid.  No problems.  I investigated the threads on the mug.  Problem.  It was in the dishwasher and some of the threads had warped ever so slightly, but enough to always derail the lid.

This note is more a reminder to myself than anything - step back and take a breather when you’ve tugged on the strings so many times already and the situation is only getting worse.