Getting your money's worth

Some programming sticks with you beyond the years. Example: folding my laundry.
A long time ago, circa 1983 – I had joined the Navy and went to boot camp in San Diego. There was awful food, polishing torpedoes, and a lot of marching around, but the most curious task we all learned before anything else was how to properly fold your clothing.

I imagined it was for two reasons why we had to have our stuff folded just right, to fit everything we own into the smallest little locker on the ships, and to have attention to detail. Attention to detail is something that is lacking in the work force today, in the Navy and later when I was in the Army, it can mean life or death.

It still seemed absurd folding your underwear like everyone else, but that was part of the game. I remember being in the front-leaning-rest position for having a little wrinkle in the crotch of a towel fold.

After all these years, I still fold my towels and t-shirts like I was taught in the Navy. Of course they are nowhere close to the perfection demanded back then, but strange how things just get programmed. Taxpayers got their money’s worth on that one.