Breakfast at the halfway stop

On the long road from Riyadh to Dammam, somewhere past the halfway point, there is a petrol station with a small kitchen at the back. At dawn it serves eggs cooked with tomato, bread from a hot oven, and sweet tea in a paper cup.

It is not the best breakfast in the Kingdom. The table wobbles. The bread is a little thick. Anyone who has eaten at a good hotel could list ten ways to improve it.

And yet, for a driver who set off before first light with three more hours ahead of him, it might be exactly right.

Perfect is a useful idea. When you are making something, holding it against the best possible version shows you what to fix next. Cooks, builders and writers need that measure, and the good ones never put it down.

As a way of eating, buying or living, though, it is a trap. Every meal can be set beside the ideal meal, and every meal will lose. Measure anything against perfect and you will always find the gap, and soon the gap is all you can taste.

What is in front of us is never perfect. That was never the real question. The real question is whether it answers the need of this particular morning, and surprisingly often, it does.

The man at the next table wipes his plate with the last of the bread and walks back to his car. He is not thinking about what the eggs could have been. He is fed, warm, and on his way.