I think we consider too much the good luck of the early bird and not enough the bad luck of the early worm. ~Franklin D. Roosevelt
The problem with always being early, is that most people are always late. So not only am I waiting awkwardly in the parking lot, or in the restaurant at the table, for the 15 minutes that I was early, but also during the 15 minutes that the person is late. It wastes a lot of my time. Being early saves me from the anxiety of being late. If I happen to run late, for whatever reason, I picture my friend, sitting alone, fuming that I wasted her time or that I am not punctual. I can't handle the thought of that---so I try to always be early, sometimes to a fault. It happens often enough, that I am too early for my own good, that I have started always bringing a book, just in case I have to find something to do for a long stretch alone. There are some common thoughts that go through my head when I am early and someone is late. I made a list below of the scenarios that tend to happen to me because of my chronic earliness: 1. You worry that there was a miscommunication and maybe they aren't coming at all. 2. You wonder if they are hiding somewhere, laughing at you for being so punctual and that maybe they knew you were going to be so early so they planned some sort of practical joke. 3. You always end up drinking too much water, and the waiter keeps asking if you need anything else while you wait. 4. Or, worse, the hostess won't seat you until everyone in your party arrives, so you stand at the front, watching the door like a hawk. 5. You wish you would've lied and said an early time to your friend, knowing that they would be late. 6. Sometimes you annoy people because you get to their house too early, and they are not ready. That has happened in my book club---we said 6:30, so I arrived at 6:20---the hostess was clearly not ready yet. 7. You start to wonder who you are keeping company with----that they can't respect you enough to be punctual. 8. You start to worry that something really bad has happened, and then you get mad at yourself for being annoyed at something so trivial as punctuality. 9. You tell yourself that if they don't get here at a certain time, then you should just leave. 10. You try to play it cool when they walk in, like you haven't been there for 30 minutes, waiting...... 11. You leave early, trying to beat the weather or a storm....and you end up working at school for 2 hours, even though it is canceled for the day. Definitely a waste of time--and since school is canceled, you end up driving home in the worst of the storm, which is even more dangerous than staying at school and waiting it out. 12. You are the first one at every dinner so you pick the first spot at the table, and then everyone else comes in, picking other seats, and you get stuck at the end of the table, with all the babies and kids. It is way better to arrive 2nd or 3rd so you can position yourself near everyone else at the adult end. 13. Inevitably, when you are early, the other person is running late, so what started out as a short wait, ends up being half an hour---and the other person has a solid excuse for running late---but you just have to smile and pretend you weren't about to leave.
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Mrs. Mitchell
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March 2020
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