Notoriously Late

A friend told me that whenever she needs to invite one of her siblings to a family event, she always backs the clock up by half an hour.

Her sibling is notoriously late.

But for me, worse than the person who is notoriously late, is the person who is notoriously early. Because even if you are running on schedule, early arrivers make you appear late. They cause you to rush and scurry and apologize for not being “ready” when your readiness is in fact congruent with the clock.

Notoriously early arrivers are the most irritating people of all.

And whereas in my experience I can fool the late arriver with time subtraction, I cannot fool the early arriver with time addition. Because people who always arrive late are typically arrogant enough to believe that if all the other guests show up at the same time as them it is because everyone is late. But when the early people arrive and find themselves with the rest of the invited guests they  quickly realize that it cannot possibly be that everyone is early.

Everyone is never always early.

And I assert that late people are okay with their imposition because they fundamentally believe that they are not missing anything important in doing so; whereas early people feel inclined to arrive early because they want to miss nothing—even when nothing has happened yet. Early people are more on the needy-side;  late people are more on the self-absorbed side.

The best side to be on is the punctual side. Because no one ever hears anyone complaining about a friend or relative being notoriously on-time—unless they are the tax collector.