Clockwatcher

The matter of punctuality drives me insane. I'm prone to being late sometimes, I'll admit. Some of my most frantic, unglued moments have been ones in which I am late or at risk of being late. When one is running late and reliant on public transportation, the knowledge that one can do absolutely nothing but wait and hope for the best is not pleasant. Driving, one has the hope that comes from knowing an alternate route could conceivably speed things up. I don't have that hope generally.

Mostly I manage to avoid such incidents of lateness, whether it is for something critical like an audition or something unimportant like a casual get-together. It seldom seems that people appreciate the lengths to which I go, but the compulsion to be on time is very natural to me, so I guess I don't need to have my efforts validated by other people. It would be nice, but I take comfort in knowing that I have lived up to my own standards, or tried to.

God knows what standards other people seem to live by. It drives me insane, how little trouble some people go to in meeting schedules. I agree to be someplace at a particular time, and there's really no question of being late. For them there seems to be no question of being on time. Even when I attempt to adjust to their sure tardiness, they always manage to be later than I can bear to be. Even trying to be late, I can't do it as well as them.

I'm trying to restrain my vitriol, but I see it's not working very well. That's just how I am. There was a particular incident yesterday. I was meeting with a couple of friends, and I'll stress that I'm very fond of both. Neither is very good at being on time. Both were late by a significant margin. I'll own up to being a few minutes late myself, not that either of them would ever know. I sat there just livid until their arrival. It's times like that that ensure that in addition to being on time to everything on Earth, all the stress will have me early to my grave.