I’m very punctual. I always have been. Well, aside from my birth. I was two weeks late and I think I’ve been making up for it ever since. According to my mother, her water broke while playing cards with friends. She initially thought that a joke literally made her pee her pants. Then she realized that none of her friends were that funny. So, she and Dad hurried to the hospital only to be sent home. It was false labor. She then returned around midnight and I was born just after 8 A.M. Supposedly, in terms of labor, that isn’t too bad. I remember when a cousin of mine told me that she was in labor over 30 hours before the doctor decided on a Cesarean. Thirty hours and then he thinks of a Cesarean?! Remember when doctors used to slap the baby to get it to breathe? Slap the damn doctor instead. 30 hours my as…
As I was saying, I started thinking about my proclivity for punctuality (and for alliteration, I guess), as I arrived 30 minutes early to meet my friend Angie for dinner Saturday night. Now, that’s punctual, right? Some would say anal, but those are the same people who are probably always late. The reason I was so early was that I overestimated the time it would take to drive from Daly City to Half Moon Bay. The distance is about 21 miles but I accounted for heavy fog (which there was), winding roads with only one lane in each direction, and my general inability to follow directions. My Garmin lady practically sighs in exasperation when she utters the word, “recalculating”.
My parents had a mixed marriage. Dad tended to be late and spontaneous and Mom was on time and deliberate. I ended up subscribing to Mom’s philosophy that stated, “Spontaneity is fine as long as I can plan for it.” I think I did this because I saw how much it upset her when we’d be rushing around to get somewhere because Dad took too long to get going or when he would announce on the spur of the moment, “Hey, let’s pack our bags and go to the river for the weekend!”
Along the way, I learned that punctual people have about four choices when dealing with the non-punctual: (a) Get angry, (b) Go it alone, (c) Lie, or (d) Surrender. I have utilized all four techniques throughout my life. Let’s take a look at each one, shall we?
Get Angry: This really doesn’t accomplish anything. A truly non-punctual person has no clue why you’re upset. His or her favorite phrase is, “What’s the big deal?” Maybe in some cosmic, “big picture” way, tardiness is unimportant, but not when you have concert tickets or dinner reservations. However, yelling at your loved ones can sometimes lead to…
Going it Alone: The worst-case scenario is that you drive your friends and family away and into the arms of other shiftless slackers. The best-case scenario is not putting yourself in a situation where you are waiting on anyone but yourself. Obviously, this works if you’re single. And you probably are since you have no friends who could introduce you to anyone to date.
Lying: This technique works when you absolutely have to be on time for an event. My godmother has always been notoriously late for everything, so when I asked her to be my Confirmation sponsor back in 8th grade, I knew I had to have a plan. The plan consisted of lying about the actual time she had to be at the church. I told her to be there an hour earlier than she really had to, and she just made it on time. I must admit that this did lead to a bit of an existential dilemma about how much of a sin it was to lie to my godmother on my Confirmation. Is that venial or mortal?
Surrender: This is a tough one because it implies letting someone else win and I’m not good at that. As I’ve said before in this blog, I’m an only child and a Leo. Isn’t getting my way some kind of birthright? As I’ve gotten older, however, I’ve tried to look at the notion of surrender in more of an inner-directed rather than an outer-directed way. By surrendering to how a situation or a person is, I’m not giving up my power to that person or situation. I’m giving myself power over my reactions. After all, I can only control my actions and my reactions. I can’t control other people or their actions (unless I employed voodoo, that is).
Hmm…voodoo…