One thing out of proportion

There is a falafel stand in Mansoura that does almost everything in an ordinary way.

The bench is plastic. The bread is the bread you can buy anywhere. The salad is fine. Nobody would photograph the menu board.

But the falafel is fried only when you order it, and handed over straight from the oil, so green inside from the herbs that it hardly seems like the same food. That is the whole story. It is what people tell their friends, and it is why there is a queue on a weekday morning.

Imagine improving that stand by comparing each part of it with the best version in town. The seating of the smartest café, the bread of the best bakery, the counter of the cleanest shop. Every gap closed. It is a tempting exercise, for a stand or a shampoo or a bank, because nobody wants to be worse than a rival at anything.

And it almost never produces something people talk about. A collection of borrowed strengths is good in every column and memorable in none.

What gets talked about is lopsided. One part pushed far past what anyone expects, and everything else arranged so that part can do its work. A whole that hangs together around its strangest feature.

The useful question is not where you are behind. It is which edge is yours, and how much further past it you are willing to go.