A Snail By Comparison

(Everybody likes a rant. You've been warned.)

Do you think moving 13 inches in 3 minutes and 41 seconds is fast? For Sidney the Snail it was fast enough to win the World Championships of Snail Racing. (See Sidney cross the finish line: HERE.) I love the following line from the story:

His (Sidney's) owner, 62-year-old Claire Lawrence from Litcham, Norfolk, was presented with a silver tankard filled with lettuce" as an award. (Isn't that just great?)

This story of the victory of the smallest of creatures is the perfect backdrop for a talk about comparisons and comparing. You wouldn't compare a snail's speed with a race car's, now would you? But there are some who often do. They compare the proverbial "apples and oranges." They compare things that really aren't comparable.

For instance, one real estate office outproducing another real estate office in whatever area (volume sales, etc.) Take your pick. And there are those who get all excited over it. "Look. We are the top producers." And they stick their chests out. And they walk around all uppity with their noses in the air. (Is "uppity" a word?) The problem is these top producers have 50 agents in their office, half of which have been in the business for a decade or more (btw, this is a fictitious example) while the bottom feeding, low life and "Why are they even wasting their time in the business anyway?" other office have only 5 agents (one tenth of the workforce), 3 of which are newbies.

Sometimes "snails" win championships. 'Nuff said. (That's a word. I looked it up: Webster's.)