My punctuality is killing me
And now a fable, titled “My Punctuality Is Killing Me.”
Our story begins with an invitation. You would like me to attend your one-woman show, your grilled cheese night, your bail hearing. It doesn’t really matter what the invitation is for, specifically. It could be that you are having a “7th Heaven” season finale viewing party, I really don’t care.
So you tell me what time to show up, and I am on time. But your thing, your little event, the grilled cheese dance party or whatever it is we’ve established you do, does not start on time. And yet, I am there.
Well, no more. In fact, I have an announcement: I won’t be showing up on time to anything anymore. Not to your Hanukkah singles mixer or your airport curbside pickup. Previously, when I was living a lie, I would show up for a play with an 8 p.m. curtain at five-of. Then I would sit there, hapless, as the production was held up for people straggling in 10, 20 minutes late.
What’s the big deal, you ask? Just this: Being punctual, I have discovered, no longer makes sense, either for me or for what I hope to accomplish in life. Worse, I believe that being punctual is actually killing me.
Even a cursory glance through my Filofax reveals the slow march of death I am on. To give but one brief example that isn’t actually true but will give you an idea of what I mean: Sept. 2, a Thursday. I have a “12:45 lunch” with S., who wants me to help her pick out head shots. (S., for the purposes of this example, is an aspiring actress who has been told by more than one person that she has “Sarah Jessica Parker in her hair.” S. isn’t sure if this is a compliment. I tell her it’s better than being told you have Geoffrey Rush in your teeth.)
Anyway, I arrive at the restaurant at 12:32, and as usual when I arrive at a restaurant before my dining companion, I can’t decide whether to be seated or not.
And then, of course, I get seated and, because I’ve forgotten my book and can call my voicemail only so many times, I get seated and proceed to read the menu as if it’s so very, very interesting.
S. finally arrives, at 1:09. She mumbles something about construction on La Brea and Santa Monica and asks, “Have you been waiting long?”
Friends, those 20 or 25 minutes that S. kept me waiting don’t sound like much. But they add up.
What S. wants to hear is, “I just got here, don’t worry about it.” What S. doesn’t want to hear is: “You’re killing me. Literally. You have diminished my life by another 20 minutes, and I hope you’re happy. I hope you’re happy that you’re killing me. Furthermore, your flimsy story about construction on La Brea and Santa Monica doesn’t hold up because, in case you haven’t noticed, we’re in Venice. Shall we order now? Splendid! Thanks so much for coming.”
And then there is the family gathering. Call time for dinner is 7 p.m. I show up at 6:58. Family members trickle in at 7:10, 7:18, 7:29, like guest stars on an old episode of “The Love Boat.” Oh, look, it’s Stefanie Powers! And she’s with Lyle Waggoner. Lovely. I guess we can set sail now.
Astonishingly, I have come to realize that by being on time or early to our movie date/fishing expedition/trip to the Burbank Fry’s so you can show me which DVD player to buy, I have lost, on average, an hour a day of my time, for a total of seven hours a week, 28 hours a month and 336 hours a year. That’s 14 days of waiting!
Imagine waiting for nine days. Eventually you would remove your shoes.
Still, we’re pretty dumb, we humans. We show up five minutes early for movies that don’t start until after the commercials for television shows, the anecdotal spot for this newspaper, the movie previews and those “THX: The Audience Is Listening” promos that my brother likes to call “advertisements for loud.”
Someone I know, a source close to her bookshelf, informs me that Andy Warhol wrote on this very subject of punctuality and the time issue and its effects on the psyche. She said there’s a whole chapter in Warhol’s “The Philosophy of Andy Warhol” about time. In fact, the chapter is called “Time.”
Good information, all.
So let’s make a date, you and I. Let’s go to the bookstore and check out the Warhol book and others. Let’s get coffee afterward and talk about relationships, our careers, bowling.
See you then. You will be late, and, now, so will I.
Paul Brownfield can be contacted at paul.brownfield@ latimes.com.
