Instructions should match reality

I had to visit the doctor yesterday for a very minor surgical procedure. The doc packed the wound with gauze when he was finished and gave me some instructions on how to remove it later that night.

As seems to be typical with doctors these days, the gauze he used was that industrial-grade stuff. The kind they probably use to mop up nuclear waste. The point is that it persists in sticking to a wound until the bitter end. The irony is that the instruction sheet he gave me said it would “come off easily” with some hydrogen peroxide. An hour later and it was still hanging on for dear life.

The moral of the story? Whether in medicine or software, instructions should match reality!