I hate to admit it, but over the years, I have managed to
turn being late into an art form. I don't care how hard I try, I never seem to
be able to arrive on time for anything.
I guess it's because I've always been a dawdler. When I was
a kid, I was the queen of dawdling. I
dawdled when I walked to school. I
dawdled when I walked home. I even
dawdled when I was dawdling. For this reason, my friends nicknamed me “Speedy.”
And things didn’t change when I went to high school. At the
time, we lived only about 150 feet from the school. Through our kitchen window, I actually could see the teachers in
their classrooms. My mother used to
joke that all I had to do was roll out of bed every morning and I’d already
have one foot in the schoolyard.
Yet, for some reason, I always was the last one to arrive in
class. By the time I finally crawled
out of bed (after my mother had to yell at me to get up until she was hoarse),
ate one Cheerio at a time, and spent an eternity trying to get my hair to look
“just right,” the school’s lunch bell was ringing. I accumulated so many tardy
marks on my report cards, the teachers had to attach extra pages.
Nowadays, my usual method for getting ready for appointments
is to sit around until about 20 minutes before I have to be there, then I rush
around like a madwoman, slapping on makeup and brushing my hair…and hoping I’ve
remembered to put on all of my clothes as I rush out the door. Getting ready in advance with time to spare
just isn’t in my nature.
My husband was just the opposite, however. He arrived at appointments so early, the sun
was just rising and the building was still locked. But whenever he wanted me to
go somewhere with him, such as a doctor's appointment, we inevitably would
arrive late. This would stress him out so much, his blood pressure usually
ended up being about 170/100 when the doctor took it.
I'm also a failure when it comes to attending potluck
dinners. I have a bad habit of not starting to cook the dish I'm bringing until
two hours before I have to be at the gathering. By the time I arrive with my
food, everyone's already stretched out and belching, saying how stuffed they
are from eating too much. Needless to say, my culinary masterpieces usually end
up just sitting there, untouched and unappreciated.
And I've been late for so many job interviews, I'm amazed
anyone ever hired me. My first job, in an office in downtown Manchester, I
didn't have a driver's license, so I had to take the bus to work. Well, I
missed that bus so often, I became the equivalent of an Olympic sprinter,
running all the way to work...while wearing high heels! That could be the reason why my toes all are
so twisted now, they look as if someone tried to braid them.
I'd like to say that as I've aged, I've changed and have
become more time-conscious, but that would be a lie. If anything, I've become
worse. For example, I've arrived at my local post office, my arms stacked with
packages to mail, at one minute before closing-time so often, one of the clerks
finally lost his patience with me and gave me a stern lecture (I'm being polite
here - he actually called me some not-so-nice names and accused me of ruining
his personal life because I caused him to stay late at work when he had other
places to be).
I really did feel guilty after that, so I made a sincere
effort to arrive at the post office earlier from that point on.
Like two minutes before closing time.
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