Johnny-on-the-Spot … by John Foster …

Nitpicking.

A word defined by “giving too much attention to small, unimportant details usually to find fault or to criticize”.

Think also of quibble, carp, niggle, split hairs, or fuss.

So, if you’re a “nitpicker”, what are your doing?

“Nits” are tiny eggs of head lice.

I guess then that a nitpicker is one who harvests or collects nits from the head of a lice-infected person.

I think monkeys will often sit in a circle and pick “bugs” from one another.

Years ago, when we went camping with the girls in Ohio, we did a version of “nitpicking” but in search of ticks.

Youngest daughter Stacey seemed to be a “tick” magnet but she was the smallest and closest to the ground so I suspect that had something to do with it.

But I need to know when paying attention to detail becomes “nitpicking”.

Being a military veteran, a lot of my basic training was repititious.

The obvious focus was to generate a response before questioning or even logic set in.

My Dad used to tell us, “When I say ‘Jump!’ you ask ‘How high?’ on the way up.”

He was also a veteran.

The attention to detail I learned, especially in the military still leads me to “check my gig line” every morning before I go to work.

For you non-veterans, a “gig” was a write-up or a discrepancy you got for not following proper proceedures.

The “gig line” was the vertical line from the front edge of a uniform shirt, belt buckle edge and trouser fly.

I’ve been out of the military since 1973, but my “gig line” still gets checked daily.

In my duties with the local honor guard, I always check the “gig line”.

Attention to detail or niotpicking?

I still “spit shine” by black leather loafers with shoe polish.

A little shoe polish enhanced my some “mouth moisture” on a soft rag allows you to “swirl” the wax on the shoe and produce a bright shine.

We learned in basic training that if you poured a little aftershave lotion on the wax, that would produce a higher shine.

That’s why I have a little bottle of “Skin Bracer” in my shoeshine kit.

I could buy a pair of patent leather shoes to provide that shine I’m looking for but polishing “old style” takes me back to the days of sitting on my foot locker in San Antonio, Texas, working on the best shine possible.

So, am I nitpicking or just giving attention to detail?

My wife still chides me for “eating too fast” but think that’s a habit I also picked up in the Air Force while eating in chow halls.

In basic training, you had to shovel food down quickly or you might not get to eat everything.

My wife tells me to “slow down and enjoy your meal”.

I tell her it’s still tasty when consumed quickly, especially for me.

For years I folded my t-shirts the same way I was taught in basic training when we had to display them in our foot lockers.

Attention to detail or nitpicking?

Or simply habit?

For two years, we lived in Selma, Alabama and i worked on the flight line in smothering heat and humidity

Nightly I would use spray starch on my fatigues and I’d iron in a crease so sharp in them that you could shave with it.

Walking to my car to go to the flight line, the southern Alabama humidity would start working on that crease and a few moments on the flight line, combined with perspiration, that crease was gone.

Now, more than attention to detail or nitpicking, that might have come from something else.

I always thought I did a better job when I was properly attired.

Years later, working in radio, I wore a dress shirt with a tie.

In a radio studio.

Nobody saw me except studio guests but for me, tying that Windsor knot in the pre-dawn darkness mentally prepared me for looking and doing my best. every day.

Pretty “old school”, right?

At this point and time in my life, I doubt there will be any serious changes although I now wear polo shirts and khakis to work.

Attention to detail or nitpicking?

Or habit?

Good habits are hard to break.