Looking for an explanation

Why can't things be the way they're supposed to be? Why are so many events/situations/purchased products/people not quite as they should be? Why is perfection such an impossibility? We all know that it is, but why?

Turns out there's something wrong with my new lawn mower (besides the fact that I don't have the correct instruction manual for it). A knob that holds one part to another part keeps coming off as I'm mowing. This is the third thing that has been not quite right about this "purchased product"-- the first having been that Lowe's sold me a lawn mower without an instruction manual, the second, that they then supplied me with the wrong manual. This is a long way from perfection.

And now I have to take the damn thing back, which makes the situation painfully far from perfection. Roll it out my basement door, around to the side of the house, up the slope to the driveway, fold the thing up, heft it into my car, make the 20 minute drive to Lowe's, heft it out of my car, do my share of waiting at Customer Service (I already did a lot of waiting when I went back for the manual which turned out to be the wrong manual), with who knows what outcome, since this was the last one of this model they had.

I did at least get my lawn mowed. Took three days, about 40 minutes each day, since my stamina is almost non-existent, and since the grass was so high, and on the second day so wet, that I had to take a stroke back for each stroke forward, in order to get it all. But you know, except for the damn knob that I kept having to go back and look for in the grass when I would realize it had fallen off again because the handle had started coming apart again, I was really pleased with the thing. Cordless electric is definitely the way to go. But now what's going to happen?

And then there are my new curtains. You remember the bathroom curtains Cozy Cottage was going to make for me? They were ready in only a week, rather than the two the woman had thought it would take, and they're very pretty -- the fabric goes just fine with my bathroom decor, which I'd been worried about -- but they're too short. In this case, the answer to why something isn't perfect is: I screwed up. My length-wise measurement was off by half an inch. But actually there's one other thing that's "not quite right": the hem is too wide. When we were discussing how I wanted the curtains made, and the woman said, "And you'll probably want a five or six inch hem, to give it weight," I was taken aback -- that seemed mighty wide to me -- but I figured she was the expert. But as it turns out the curtain is so small, because the window is so small, that the wide hem is notice-ably out-of-proportion.

So I've decided I have to take the curtains back, too. Have her increase the length, and narrow the hem, undoubtedly for an additional charge. What price the urge to perfection.

Oh, but it's so gorgeous in our neck of the woods now. The faint green haze that could be seen in all the trees a week ago has been replaced by lush green foliage. The trees are back! The green is back! All the lilac bushes are blooming! We've had temperatures in the 60s, and low humidity. If you don't look too closely, this is perfection.