Life is too short to spend it waiting

 Life is too short to spend it waiting.  So if you've been waiting for me to update this blog...yeah, I'm not going to even address that because I doubt anyone has been waiting.

I have always prided myself on being a relatively punctual person.  I was always early to church.  That's how I established my very own pew for years.  When babysitting, I was on time all the time.  Sometimes when I would drive to the F's house (which is about 25 minutes away) I would leave too early and would have to kill a bit of time so I wouldn't show up early to their house.  If anything, I prefer to be early than late.  I hate being late.

I also hate waiting for people who are late.  I don't hate it - I realize it happens.  But if you are perpetually late, you're darn right that it will get on my nerves.  You waste my time when you make me wait for you.  Once shame on you, twice shame on me.  But more likely than not if you say "Oh, Erin I'm sorry I was late" I will put my annoyance away and just get on with it.

I just don't like showing up late to things.  I was always early for class when I was in school.  I'm usually within 5 minutes of starting time coming into work and that's because there isn't a huge amount of pressure to be on time, so I don't put a huge amount of pressure on myself to be out of the house on time to get to work.

This leads to my story.

Last Thursday I had to go to Ann Arbor for an HRD course.  The course started at 8:30 so I knew with traffic I should be out of the house by 7:00.  I was successful getting out of the door on time, and figured I would reward myself with my usual tall skinny vanilla latte from Starbucks.  I get there and notice the drive-thru line is longer than usual and there is no one parked out front, so I decide to just run it.  As I get out of my car, a gentleman gets out of his car and tells me my rear passenger side tire is low.  He says something along the lines of "you want to get air in that before it rolls off the rim."  I thanked him and went in to order my coffee.  I should have been more thankful for him telling me that because if he hadn't told me that, I wouldn't have known and would've driven the 50+ miles to Ann Arbor with a low tire.  Not good.

So I get my coffee and head off to put some air in my tire.  I have $.75 in quarters, so I proceed across the street to get some air.  Wouldn't you figure the damn Pepsi truck was RIGHT in the way so that wasn't going to work.  I drove about 1.5 miles to the nearest gas station, but then remember there is a Belle Tire close by that has free air.  Of course since it's like 7:15 a.m. the air is not on.  I get back into my car and back track to the gas station to get air.  Of course there it costs $1.00 (what a rip) so I had to go inside and wait in line to get change for the air.  Finally, I get air in my tire and hit the road.  By now, it's closing in on 7:30.

By this point, I figured I was going to be late to the start of my course and this was stressing me out.  I hate walking in late!  I compromised with myself saying it would be okay since I wouldn't be more than 15 minutes late and it would be awkward, but okay.  The drive moves along fine - a bit slow at times with the snowy roads - but nothing treacherous.

Of course as I get closer to Ann Arbor the traffic comes to a crawl.  Great, 8:30 has come and gone by this point.  I was going to be later than I planned.  If the U hadn't already paid for the class, I likely would've just turned around and went home rather than walked in class late.  But, I didn't drive all that way for nothing.  It's soon approaching 9:00 and I'm still not even near the Ann Arbor exit.  I begin to run lines in my head as to what to say to the reception desk when I walk in and how to apologize to the course leader.

Finally, I get to the HRD building around 9:10.  I rush in (stopping at the bathroom, of course) telling the receptionist, "I'm terribly late for the course."  Her reply:

"What course?"

After all that - the coffee, the low tire, the 50+ mile drive, the traffic crawl, the BEING late - she tells me the course has been cancelled.

The bright side?  I wasn't late.  The down side?  I got in my car and drove back to Flint.