21 Jun 2015
When I was little, I was sent to piano lessons. I’d be taught chopsticks, or whatever, for half an hour; then I would stand on the teacher’s porch, waiting for my mother. This could often be for quite some time. I didn’t have a watch, so I was never sure how late she was, but 45 minutes or more was not uncommon. She was a woman who was appallingly, frustratingly, congenitally late for absolutely everything. As my grandfather said: “That woman will be late for her own funeral”.
I suspect this is a good part of the reason I’m ALWAYS early. For meetings, I turn up with half an hour to spare, so there’s time for the loo or a coffee or extra time to find the place. I’m prompt for social occasions, as are the kids for everything. In fact, when I start to chase my kids out of the door: “Put on your shoes! Where’s your coat!” my daughter will quietly point out that I always get in this kind of flap, yet we are always early. She’s right, but I can’t bear being late. I imagine my young self, legs swinging with boredom as I perch on the porch step, huffing and rolling my eyes at yet another wasted hour. Was no thought given to whether my time was valuable? Perhaps I felt consigned to the realms of the insignificant, if I could be so easily left dangling there, week in, week out. I would be horrified if anyone felt like that as a result of my lateness.
That said, I have good friends who are, with monotonous regularity, tardy beyond all explanation. There is one to whom I now lie about the time of anything, because unless I tell her that something begins a good half hour before it actually does, she will miss the event entirely. If a party starts at 8, I will tell her it’s 7.30, knowing full well she won’t appear till quarter to nine. She never appears remotely flustered by her lateness, and I’ve long since got over being cross. I’m pretty sure her motive is not to be rude, but even after all this time, I occasionally wonder why she can’t, just once, be on time.
This has, predictably, left me pondering. Said friend has a hectic job and young children and it’s not easy to fit in everything she wants to do. Another one (habitually late) attempts to pack far too much into her day and is just unable to accept her woeful underestimations of how long something will take. The fact remains that for these two folk and all those like them, the lateness must, on some level, be doing something for them. They might not even be conscious of it, but humans will rarely engage in repeat behaviour if there is no intrinsic reward. The conclusion is that it’s not for me to fathom what or why, or to try and change them. That’s their own look-out. My choice is whether I can factor it in to the terms and conditions of friendship and sail serenely on.
