28 October 2006

It isn't natural

Early people and late people should not hang out together. It isn't natural. Someone always gets hurt.

I am supposed to meet my friends across town for the big Day of the Dead decorating session at 7 p.m. They have to unlock the building.

They are late people. I am an early person. I am sitting here at 6:56 with my stomach clenched trying to figure out just how late they will be. I don't want to be too late but I don't want to sit in the parking lot in the dark for an hour, either.

Is 7:30 too early for the late people?

The funny part is, that to my family, I am the late person. Because they are always half an hour early.

I grew up with my dad sitting out in the driveway with the car running as the rest of us scrambled around to find our missing socks, rushing so we could arrive somewhere an hour before it opened.

When I drop the dog off in the morning at my folks' house, if I am 2 minutes past my usual time, I ALWAYS hear about it. ALWAYS.

I know if I don't leave my house within a four-minute window of time, it will be commented on, either "You're early!" or "You better get going! You're late!"

So it's built into me to be neurotic about time. And I can't understand how anyone could ever be relaxed about being late. But late people can't understand what all the fuss is about.

The two trying to get along never works - it's like cats and dogs, living together...just not natural.

13 comments:

Lady M said...

It's funny that you are the "late" person in your own early family. It's all a matter of perspective. I am pretty small (5'2"), but my mom would wait for me to get home from college to help move furniture aroun, because I'm the big one among us.

Peevish said...

Ms. Stapler is the early one, so is that the "dog" or the "cat"? And what would that make me, Mr. Stapler, as the late person? Please discuss amongst yourselves.

Anonymous said...

LOL..good post.
I'm an early person. My boss once asked me why I was late getting to work when I arrived just 5 minutes before the shift started, ha,ha..

Anonymous said...

Late people make me nuts. To me - early is on time and on time is late. I feel you, sister.

super des said...

My mom is a super late person, so I've always tried to be an early person. True, I'm earlier than my mom, but I'm never quite as early as I wasn to be. I guess that makes me a punctual person.

Anonymous said...

I'm an early person and my husband is a late person and honest to God it's the only area that we simply can't see eye to eye on. The only time we actually have anything that could be called a disagreement is deciding what time to leave for something... being early makes him crazy and being late makes me crazy.

Mignon said...

Early people think late people are boorish and inconsiderate and late people think early people are anal and controlling. My husband thinks I'm a late-y and my family thinks I'm an early, so I can't win for trying.

(Peevish, cats are clearly late-y, as they just don't give a shit.)

Anonymous said...

I am an early person, but I have developed a complex math formula to try and compensate for late people. It is still not perfect, but waiting for the late person gives me time to fine tune the formula.

Doll House Lover

Anonymous said...

My Dad is an early person. If we agree to meet at the restaurant for dinner at 7:00, he will be there at 6:40 and will have already ordered his iced tea and decided what to have to eat.

My sister-in-law, on the other hand, is a late person. It is an understood family rule that whatever time you need her to be somewhere, you lie and say it's an hour earlier than that. We spent too many Thanksgivings trying to keep the food warm while she was still at her house blow drying her hair or finishing a load of laundry.

Anonymous said...

I'm a total late person! Of course, by "late", I mean about 15 minutes or so...never more than 30.

My dance partner/good friend is an early person...the kind who sets all his watches/clocks ahead 10 minutes so he'll never be late.

I think the day one of us gets murdered is nigh...

Lisa said...

I'm the "late" person in my family. (But they, like your dad are all very, very early people.) But overall, I'm a five minutes early kinda person. And yes, meeting my friend Angie to go shopping always gets my a big irritated because she's usually 30-45 minutes late. So I sit in the store or wherever waiting around. Drives me crazy.

Perstephone said...

Hmmm, looks like my comment was lost, but I wanted to say that I feel your punctuality vibe. I'm always either early or exactly on time.

Anonymous said...

Hi -- just popped over because I saw your comment about attending government meetings on leapeah.com and I was totally inspired...

I am a proud ADD-er and I'm late often. I try very hard to be on time. I try, try, try, and the stress was killing me. So I stopped worrying about it. Now I am almost always early IF it's an important event to me and IF it is something where my being on time really, truly matters (like leaving a friend hanging in a dark parking lot or meeting my student for a literacy tutoring session.) But if I am going to be late, I do my best to call.

In fact, I was late two days ago to a big meeting of people scheduled for 6:30 an hour away from my house. I had to work until 5:30, and I was actually stopping work early just to get to this meeting. I got lost three times and pulled over once. I walked in in the middle of a speech by my husband's boss. Fortunately, the other people were very forgiving or I would have been in tears.

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