Lateness

NOT.

No

No no no.

And don’t get me wrong. It’s not as if I’m one of those people who will glare you down when you meet me 15 minutes later than we planned, who will say amazing pearlers like “for every minute that you were late, we gossiped about you” and then kept mentioning your hunger pains throughout what became an 8.00pm-start dinner, which for people like me with Eastern-European style 4pm dinner leanings, is WAY TOO LATE to start dinner.

No, I  am not one of those people, as much as I’d like to be, because I value their take-no-nonsense-and/or-prisoners attitude, and their awareness of how important afternoon  dinners are, and also because one of those people actually asked me to write this particular entry, so I know she’s gonna read it.

No. The main reason I don’t like lateness is because it is NOT GOOD FOR YOU.

You know how stress can stream out of your pores? It can build up and release itself in acrid torrents, thick burny build-ups of tension and disappointment at your own lack of pre-planning, and the knowledge that, yes, for every minute you’re late you’re probably missing out on a pre-dinner cheese and quince paste platter.

Stressing out over being late is really poisonous. Driving while worrying about being late? Bad. Someone else holding you up when you’re already late? You find yourself mouthing hateful words at strangers.

So all I’ll say, friends, is don’t do it. For your own sake, for other peoples’ sake, and for the sake of things you will be missing out on. Leave early, from now on. A good thing about Sydney is that if you just assume it takes an hour to get anywhere, you’ll either be pleasantly 10-minutes early, or exactly on time. And then you can people-watch on the street. You can cram in a pre-dinner packet of Burger Rings. You can buy your secret medications or creams from the chemist.

This’ll calm you down, big time.

When you’re on time, the world is your oyster. And you are going to suck that salty phlegm-ball right down.

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