Chekov's gun

"One must not put a loaded rifle on the stage if no one is thinking of firing it," said playwright Anton Chekov (this particular version apparently appeared in a letter he wrote in 1889, according to the paragon of sources, Wikipedia, which I'm not going to link to). What it means is that a good writer does not introduce extraneous plot elements. Everything in a story needs to have a reason for being there; every blade of grass, every tree, every puff of breeze. It can't be there just because the writer thought it sounded pretty, or because the writer couldn't think of anything else to say, or as an offhand remark inserted in the hopes that something would come of it.

Mud and Glass is in the process of getting checked (uh-oh, unintentional pun) for guns, non-firing or otherwise. I'm doing a list of them as I go through the first 50,000 words, seeing which ones I'll keep. There are a lot, because I was very much in the "go ahead and write it, because maybe my subconscious will use it later" mode during NaNo. There are benefits to this, but also drawbacks.

However, this process is giving me pause for broader thought. Are there Chekov's guns in real life? Are all the details and crises and randomness advancing some sort of plot thread that we can't see? And if so, is this comforting or disturbing?