Boxing Day, Kildare, Ireland. Our frosty breath is visible in the cold as Lisa parks the car and we walk towards Murphy’s Lounge, the pub where we’re meeting her friend for lunch. As we approach we see that it’s closed.
Lisa: Oh bugger. We’re going to have a wait ahead of us. Niamh’s a late person.
Me (nodding in understanding): Ah. Right. What time does she think we’re meeting?
Lisa: Well I knew we’d –and I mean you and me – would want to meet at 1:00, so I told her 12:30.
I look at my watch. It’s 12:50. Lisa and I have a few friends who are “late people” and we’ve put in place systems to make it a little easier to manage them. We tell them we’re meeting half an hour earlier than the actual meeting time, knowing they’ll arrive around half an hour late. We also meet at a place where we can sit indoors. Before our system we’d accumulated many hours standing uncomfortably in the searing heat, or the biting cold. Though it’s often requested, we never arrange to meet standing outside a shop; that’s a guaranteed recipe for physical discomfort and a school-boy error. Unfortunately today the closed pub has thwarted us.
Without speaking we turn and walk back to the car where we can sit and be spared the glacial wind. Ireland’s a tough place in the winter.
We put the radio on and chat when Lisa’s phone beeps with a text. It’s 1:10pm. We both laugh.
Lisa (rolling her eyes and smiling): Here we go. I’m guessing it’ll say “Sorry, running late! Be there soon!”
Me: No, I’m going with “Running late. On my way!”
We read it. “Sorry, running 10 minutes late. On my way!”
Yep. We’ve read a lot of these messages over the years and they’re always minor variations on the same theme.
Lisa replies “No problem, see you soon”. Our replies are also minor variations on the same theme: “We’re perfectly happy to spend our time waiting for you because we didn’t have anything we needed to do before heading out to meet you – your time is obviously more valuable than ours, so don’t you go rushing yourself on our account …”
At 1:25 we see Niamh pull up, park her car and walk towards the pub. We exit our car, greet her and Lisa introduces me.
Niamh: I’m so sorry I’m late, it’s impossible to be on time when you have children!
Lisa (smiling warmly): Yeah, it’s hard. There’s always something they need at the last minute.
I don’t have to look at her to know what she’s thinking. She’d risen an hour earlier this morning to make sure she’d clothed, fed and organised her two young children so we’d be here on time. Niamh clearly hadn’t made equal arrangements and doesn’t recognise the inconsistency.
With the pub being closed we walk to a nearby café for lunch. Niamh’s lovely and we enjoy chatting about her Christmas family celebrations – complete with venting niggles that go hand-in-hand with family get-togethers. After an hour Niamh and Lisa exchange gifts. Lisa opens her present and I make sure I keep my eyes glued on the item rather than Niamh or Lisa. My face will give away my amusement and I’m also in danger of giggling inappropriately; Niamh’s gift to Lisa is a watch.
Afterword
Back at Lisa’s house we chuckled about Niamh’s ironic gift. Lisa reminded me of the Billy Joel concert we attended in 2006 (yes, Billy Joel – I’ve never claimed to be cool) at Croke Park, Dublin. The concert had commenced when some people arrived very late. As they shuffled leisurely to their seats, disrupting the audience around them, Billy Joel stopped speaking. Smiling and good-naturedly pulling up his sleeve, he looked at his watch, making a joke of the situation “Nice of you to join us … we’ll just wait for you to get comfortable and we’ll continue”. The pause in the concert while thousands of people all watched the latecomers was only made bearable by the collective laughter.
The rudeness of tardiness clearly bothers people from all walks of life and when it comes to punctuality I sit firmly in Billy Joel’s camp; timeliness is next to godliness.
Simone Scribbles 
Reminds me of a story of some Hollywood star who was performing on Broadway, a member of the audience was chatting on his phone, so the actor stopped what he was doing and had a go at him, I love that, just wish I could remember who it was, I’m edging towards Daniel Craig….let me know if you know who it is!
You’re sort of right. It was Daniel Craig with Hugh Jackman, but Hugh Jackman initiated it – God bless Australians 😉 He said something like “You want to get that? Come on, turn it off. Unless you’ve got a better story and you can come up and tell it?” The audience LOVED him for it. A few minutes later another phone rang and Daniel Craig said “Just get the phone“. 🙂
Totally agree. But you both let her off far too lightly, she needs telling. Maybe send her a link to this blog..?
I love that you cancelled dinner with your friend when he was going to be late (again). Maybe if we all did that “they’d” stop it. Sadly somehow I don’t think they would … if they cared in the first place then they’d turn up on time. We manage to! Just sending a bloody text letting us know they’ll be late doesn’t make it okay.
I respond with a hearty HELL YEAH! And Merry Christmas.
I knew you’d agree. We wouldn’t have sustained a thirty-year friendship if you didn’t 🙂