Being punctual isn’t all it’s cracked up to be
Treasure life’s unexpected delays
We’re late! We’re late! For a very important date! But does it really matter? Yes and no. Yes if the latest blockbuster is about to begin and there’s a huge lineup for the popcorn. No if I’m still in my kitchen taking a pair of nail clippers to my a crafted hors d’oeuvres and hoping the in-laws are stuck in traffic.
People start to feel guilty about running late after nine minutes, according to the roadside rescue company Green Flag, which commissioned research into our tardy habits.
But that is offset by the fact smartphones enable people to text or tweet or call to explain they are running late for a dinner party or other special occasion.
Not me, though. I consider being late far more socially acceptable than being early, so my embarrassment kicks in only after a good 18 minutes.
This isn’t to show a lack of respect — although in my experience only the uptight, the self-important and the toe-curlingly status-conscious get irritable about a few moments’ grace. On the contrary, it is an expression of deep empathy for my hostess.
Like North Korea, I have my personal (some would say equally bloody-minded) time zone, because I would be mortified if anyone arrived early, which is to say on time, for dinner. How rude to turn up just at the point where I’m deshabille! How unkind to traipse in as I’m flapping about, frantically whipping cream with one hand and violently wresting my new slingbacks from the jaws of a puppy with the other.
In a professional context things are of course different, but it came to pass spectacularly once that I was horribly late for an interview with the late (no pun intended) Robin Williams.
This was deemed such an instance of lese-majeste by His People scurrying around the ante chamber of the hotel suite that I’m ashamed to admit I lost my equanimity and drew the officious PR girl aside, whispering (while smiling passively aggressively) in her ear.
“Is this an intensive care ward? Is somebody performing microsurgery? Is an organ being transplanted against the clock?”
“Um, no,” she faltered, wrinkling her Disney princess nose in bafflement.
“Well, let’s retain a sense of proportion then,” I snapped. “I am late. I have apologized. My interview will be shorter than planned. End of (discussion).”
Williams, needless to say, hadn’t known I was late, waved my apologies away and was the personification of humble charm.
To my mind, being in the right place at the right time isn’t about clock-watching, it’s more metaphysical than the pips, more about instinct and generosity of spirit than a time zone.
I treasure polite little latenesses, unexpected delays that are nobody’s fault, an express train paused for no reason in the summer-hung stillness of the countryside, as Edward Thomas so lyrically describes in Adlestrop.
Time is our most precious commodity so there’s something delicious about gently stealing a few heartbeats here and there to breathe, to look; human being rather than human doing.
To quote another of our poets, William Henry Davies: “A poor life this, if full of care, we have no time to stand and stare.”
It might make you late. But isn’t that better than leaving it too late?