CSS: Hits Me Like A Rock

CSS will destroy you when you’re not looking. You’ll spend three hours on something that should take twenty minutes, and it’s always the same problem: a property you’ve never heard of, a specificity issue that makes no sense, or browsers that can’t agree on what a box is supposed to be. You tell yourself you understand it. Twenty years of this, and you should. Then some flex property decides it’s feeling different on Safari and you’re forty minutes deep wondering if you ever understood anything at all. The worst part is that it works, mostly, and you can get what you want out of it, but only if you approach it sideways, only if you let it surprise you instead of trying to control it. It’s like knowing a person who’s generally reasonable but occasionally shows you a side you didn’t expect.