On Sunday, someone, somewhere wasted my time. My valuable time. I'm not saying it was any more valuable than yours--well, to me it was--but it was my Sunday time. Time that I could have remained at
brunch with mes amigas. Not only did I
cut short this pleasant Sabbath rendez-vous, but I held back; declining the
mimosa, bloody Mary, and bellini, because I am professional and wanted to be on time for my appointment.
Instead, I
gulped down gulletsful of inextravagant, bitter coffee. I listened with half an ear, checking my
phone for the time, letting the conversation fog my hearing, as Brain rehearsed
the lines I would have to recall later.
I barely participated in the fast-paced chat, the camaraderie of four
friends starved of each others’ company.
I gasped monosyllables between mouthfuls of omelet and small pauses for
breath. I nodded like a dashboard dolly,
and retreated tortoise-like into my work-world.
The feta, red pepper and spinach omelet hardly hit the sides
and was devoured at record, unsavoured, speed.
I kissed cheeks, left money and ricocheted out of the door. I drove through the rain, unpacked the hefty
cases from the car, tottered up the stairs to the front door, rang the doorbell
and…
No one was there.
I had left messages confirming the appointment, had stood on
the pavement a week before, shaking the woman’s hand, agreeing, with beaming
smiles, the date, the time, the specifics.
And yet, she was not there. My
cell phone held no garbled excuses. She
simply had not shown up.
Days later and the bile still bubbles. I’m
pissed. I’m really pissed. I’m as pissed as a cow left standing in a
cramped stall, knee-deep in shit, unable to walk away because its udder is
caught in the milker. It’s not that it
hurts exactly, it’s just feckin’ annoying and DISRESPECTFUL.
Dad—he Who Shall Not Be Named, because the internet is E-ville
and, he’s not paranoid, but everyone is out to get him, and me, and any
information I volunteer on the web will surely lead to my being raped and
murdered and my thin and frail body torn limb from limb, (probably left by
railway tracks)—has a military background.
(Please E-ville internet, don't prove him right.) He plans with
military precision. He is always early,
never late, and, according to Dad, if you are on time, then you are late.
So Dad instilled this Dickensian credo into my head from a
very early age, and I learned that if I was late, I better be bleeding from
some unstaunchable wound, preferably, my eyes or femoral artery. It’s just the way it goes.
But times change. I
used to be five minutes early. Always. Now? Not so much.
In fact, as I have aged, so has my timing. It could even be described as a little on the
vintage side, BUT here’s the difference: we have mobile phones now, so if, when, I know I am going
to be late, I phone and I apologise, and I tell the waiting party when I will
arrive. I feel that this is a common
courtesy.
 |
| Hello! Yes, running late. I seem to have lost my trousers. |
Sure, would it better practice to stick to Dad’s rule? Absolutely!
But, I’m not Dad, and I am inconveniently side-tracked as often as British
Rail. So hurrah for the modern cellular
device! I should have “I’m
on my way. Be with you in 5 mins,” saved to my favourites!
Crikey, we even have email, text, pager, twitter, FB…blah,
blah, etc., etc., THERE IS NO NEED TO
LEAVE SOMEONE DANGLING. Honestly, it
doesn’t even matter if you fib and tell me your alarm didn’t go off, or you
couldn’t find your car keys, or you forgot you had a dental appointment. I don’t
care! Just text me!
Be creative! Tell me you were too busy frolicking in bed
with Ryan Gosling, who just so happened to knock on your door last night for a
cup of milky Ovaltine, and held you captive ever since. Message me that you were single-handedly damming
a river and saving a drowning beaver! Leave
me a voicemail that the Ellen Show just called and they are flying you out to
California to appear in a contest because you possess the cartoonishly horrifying 'skill' of opening metal cans with your teeth. I’d just be happy to know that you respect me
enough to make up a great lie so I am not left waiting.
When someone doesn’t text/call/send up smoke signals, they
are clearly not thinking of you and believe their shit is more important than
yours.
I have a special name for this type of person who thinks the
world revolves around them, and is too rude to take a second out of their busy
schedules to text/call you and tell you that they are not coming/ will be late…
a WANKER.
Yes, a Wanker.
There’s some regular Anglo-Saxon for you.
After a spoiled Sunday Brunch, sans mimosa, I got thinking
about all the many and varied ways my time had been wasted and I had been left
waiting, and how crappy, unwanted and unvalued this had made me feel.
Time Wankers, when you don’t show up, when you don’t call to
say you are running late, do you realise you have an impact? Do you understand the ramifications of your
inactions? I’m not being over the top, you have an effect. As I turned from the unopened
door on Sunday, heaving my heavy bags down the perilous apartment stairs, as I
schlepped the cases back in the boot of the car and drove down the road, a
frustrated tear breached my defences. I
didn’t crash, but I could have.
I know, not everyone who is late deserves the TW title. There are different degrees of Time Wankerage. I’ve narrowed it down to these basic categories:
Serial-and-thus-Expected-TW-Offenders
Sub-genre: Blatant-Serial-and-thus-Expected-TW-Offenders
Random-You-are-taking-the-Piss-TW-Offenders
And then, the Major-League-Bastard-Face-Slow-Death-Son-Of-A-Bitch-TW-Offenders.
I know quite a few Serial-and-thus-Expected-TW’s. It’s annoying, but you learn pretty quickly
to antipicate their lateness. I have even made it rewarding and placed bets on their tardy timekeeping. They will blow in, 15
minutes late, gasping for breath, “having a bad hair day,” or complaining about
the traffic. Really, it amounts to bad
planning. Serial TW, you should have got
up 15 minutes earlier, or you should have not taken that last phone call just
as you were leaving.
I probably—alas—I definitely,
fall into this category, so I’m not being a sanctimonious dickshit. However, I do text/call ahead, so no one is
dangling. I like to believe this saves
me from complete, irredeemable Time Wankerage.
Maybe, I'm the virtuous version. I know, I try to pack too much in, and there’s
my downfall. However, there are Blatant
Serial TW’s. For example: people who
say, “Honey, we’ll go after the game. There’s only 10 minutes left of the
quarter.”
Listen, Chump, you are blatantly lying! 10 minutes in any sport, especially American
Football, is NEVER 10 minutes. You are
just leaving your poor partner dangling because you want to sit your idle arse on the sofa, and
you don’t want to shop. You are probably
secretly hoping for overtime, aren’t you? You have your fingers crossed--hidden down your trousers--that she will sigh, shrug,
shoulder her handbag and go without you. You
may be in touch, giving constant commentary on the state of the game and the
minutes and seconds left, but if you know 10 minutes really means a whole
feckin’ hour, please respect her time. She
could be doing something interesting. Like
licking the windows.
You-Are-Taking-The-Piss-TW-Offender
Funnily enough, ma amiga told a tale at brunch, that
illustrates this type of oblivious disrespect, wonderfully. Picture the scene: a lush, green animal-rescue haven
nestled between creek and hillside somewhere in the wilds of northeast PA. The farm is home to ma amiga and her
menagerie of animals she has saved from perilous fates. Let’s not mince words: death. She has saved them from death, often nasty,
painful, slow, neglectful death. So
here she is, this one-woman band, grateful for volunteers and donations for her
non-profit.
Out of the blue she was contacted by someone, somewhere, who
wanted to come and see the animals.
The someone, somewhere, it turned out was traveling quite a distance to
visit, so ma amiga kindly offered her the guest bedroom. She’s a nice lass, ma amiga.
The guest bed was made up, dinner was prepared, wine was
bought--the nearest State Liquor Store being over an hour away--and other guests
were invited to welcome this visitor. All
was ready and waiting. Waiting being the
inoperative word. Ma amiga, grew
red-faced for her guest, as the minutes ticked by, accompanied by the sounds of
hungry stomachs gargling. An hour
passed. Another hour passed. At what hour the visitor telephoned, I don’t
recall--I was gulping coffee and omelet as the story flowed—but she did call,
several times, to say “I’m coming, be there soon.” Fine, fair enough. If it were true. But IT WASN’T!
The night drew in, the heavens opened, the fire was lit, the
dinner got burned, the dinner got cold, the dinner was eaten, and FIVE HOURS
after the appointed time, the visitor walked in. No apology.
No seeming embarrassment, just an 11pm energy and hunger to demolish
everything in sight, including a whole bottle of wine.
To add her already alarming Time Wankerage, the visitor
tried her best to completely shanghai ma amiga and make her complicit in her TW
shenanigans. In the morning, the laggard
would not get out of bed, in spite of the fact that the whole point of her retarded trip was to visit the animals! Ma amiga had
specifically told the visitor that she needed to leave to get to her
appointment on time, but Visitor’s inert and then slow-moving oblivion, made ma
amiga’s well-planned morning, a trying one.
That’s TW 1-0-1.
Major-League-Bastard-Face-Slow-Death-Son-Of-A-Bitch-Time-Wankerage-Offenders.
Wow, that’s quite some title you have to earn there. What
do you expect? We are out of the Minors here. This is full-frontal effrontery. Someone who disrespects you to your
face. Who smiles and says they will be
somewhere or do something without any intention of it ever being so.
MLBFSDSOBTW is not reserved for bosses and obstructive
co-workers, but it can rear its retarded head in relationships too: to the
friend who has been dating her chap for ten years and he STILL won’t commit… he’s
a Wanker; to ma amiga who has had to serve papers twice, because he STILL won’t
sign… he’s a Wanker; to the girl, struck dumb with disappointment, waiting for
something to change, but he never notices… you
are the Wanker, because you have to make the change, or say or do something!
It is an over-used expression nowadays, but the phrase, “He’s
just not that into you,” can fit most TW scenarios. Whether dating or not, when you enter into a
relationship with someone, be it business, friendship, marriage, there are
rules of engagement. These are unstated,
but generally the rule is that, if you want to retain the services/good feeling/
sexual favours in said relationship, then you treat the person with respect. You don’t leave them dangling, penis or
pencil in hand. If you are late, or busy,
or aren’t interested, TELL THEM. Then
time can be spent more productively working/socializing/shagging someone else.
I’m probably being just a smidgen hypocritical here. Have I left people dangling? Err… Jeremy Paxman “Yesssss,” but, my time
management, or lack thereof, is never meant maliciously. And funnily enough, it is often those I care
most about who see the Ennie McLatekins, because I know/I hope that they know, I
am doing my headless poultry thing, trying to catch rain with my fingers
splayed, whilst juggling ten feral, rabid cats.
Mum and Dad, when you phone me and I bark down the phone, “I’M
VERY BUSY,” I am sorry. Please don’t
take it personally, it’s just … I am trying so very hard to get things done, to
meet deadlines and people, to be on time and not let anyone down, to not be a
Time Wanker, that I end up being Barky the Bitch. I’m really trying to do what you taught me
and be respectful of everyone else.
We are all busy. I
understand that. But next time you know that
someone, somewhere is waiting for you, be kind and tell them straight. Don’t be a Time Wanker. Daddy wouldn’t like it.
