Lose the Late-itude

There is nothing worse than chronic lateness. Okay, there are worse things, like famine, but it’s not far behind.  I hate hate hate when people are constantly late for everything.  Especially if said people don’t even seem to think it’s a problem.  If you show up late and make a quiet entrance, seem kind of embarrassed , and are remorseful, then I have an easier time letting it slide.  This habit is especially annoying in classroom situations; I hate seeing people stroll into class late with coffee and a bagel. Like really?!?! Fuck you, if you’re late I expect to see you walk into class a little out of breath from running to get to your location as soon as possible. You should not be walking in with breakfast; if you can’t plan ahead than you don’t get nourishment, wait till lunch.  I have always been on-time for everything, well actually I’m always early, so I feel as though there is no excuse for lateness (except at a party of course, where it’s preferable to be fashionably late).

Maybe my feelings on this subject are a bit heightened since I spent a significant portion of my childhood waiting for my father to take me to or pick me up from places.  He was always late, always.  This of course infuriated me, but I had no control over the situation, which probably just made me even more annoyed, so all I could do was complain to no avail.  I never understood why people couldn’t figure out a way to fix this problem.  If you’re late once, then figure out why (i.e. did you get up too late?).  I understand some things are out of our control, like traffic and the flow of public transport, but these are things you can figure out.  Listen to the traffic report, check that train lines are running properly, and work it out from there.  Most importantly, you should be planning to get there about 15 minutes before you actually need to be there, this way you have some room to breath in case of disaster.

What’s worse than people that arrive late to class or work, is those that arrive late to any and every dinner/hang out/movie etc, leaving whoever they happen to be meeting standing around twiddling their thumbs.  Or these days pretending to do something really important/interesting on their phone while standing on the street corner like a two dollar hooker (I guess that only applies to chicks)  This is one of the reasons I carry a book almost everywhere I go. I’d actually really like to have the mentality of someone with a late-itude for a day or so, because I imagine that their lives must be pretty freakin’ relaxing.  On the very few occasions where I found myself running late, it stressed me out beyond measure, but I can’t actually recall a time where I was late and it was my own fault.  Even when I try to be late, I fail.  Sometimes when I know I’m meeting up with a chronically late person I will attempt to be late myself.  However, this never works out.  I guess I imagine that I walk a lot slower that I actually do, I don’t know, but I always seem to arrive at least five minutes early anyway.  In any event, it seems I am chronically early and happen to love a lot of people who are chronically late.  Because believe me if I didn’t love said late-ituders then I would stop associating with them asap. Bottom line: being late is like saying, “you’re not important/significant enough for me to keep you from waiting.” Work on it people.