How to Be on Time

The Tooleys were late for everything. One could blame our tardiness on a family of six sharing 1.5 bathrooms, but really, limited access to a shower was only part of it.

As for most women, especially of her time, the child-rearing and housekeeping fell to my mother. My dad was responsible for getting only himself ready for church or other outings and, on most occasions, he would wait in the car for the rest of the family to take their seats and buckle up. It wasn't above him to honk the horn as a way to hurry us along, a tactic I imagine proved most unhelpful and likely prompted some passive aggression on my mom's part. Who would blame her?

Our habitual tardiness became a way of life, punctuated by the fact that we lived out in the country and every destination required a decent drive. We relied on school buses to ferry us to our rural schools until we were old enough to drive, and Vernon Grove, our bus driver, said to me as I lumbered up the steps one morning, "Tooley, you will be late to your own funeral." Funny in retrospect but humiliating to a fourth-grader. 

Once I became employed, my tardiness followed me. I would race to my job at the mall and hurl myself toward the time clock in an attempt to punch in on time. More than one boss commented on my lack of punctuality.

Much later in life, I decided to take actionable steps to arrive on time, if not early. Memories of my mother attempting to complete one more task before leaving the house—sew a button on a shirt, start a meal, fold some laundry—and then race around to attempt to corral her brood into the car before a second toot of the horn from Dad provided inspiration. 

So I decided to complete anything that had to be done before leaving the house—getting dressed, feeding a child or pet—before attempting any task that could wait for later—emptying the dishwasher, watering plants, ironing. This strategy helped considerably.

But ultimately what made the biggest difference was, instead of focusing on what time we needed to be somewhere, I homed in on what time we needed to leave. Made much easier with the advent of MapQuest and then later map apps, calculating the time of travel and then padding it a bit for unforeseen obstacles such as traffic or gas stops to determine an ETD over an ETA was a game-changer. 

My girl, not thrilled on her first day of school.
But, she was on time!

This strategy proved ineffective only when we lived close to a destination and therefore travel times became immaterial. The years we lived across the street from the church we attended and my daughter's tenure at an elementary school within walking distance foiled my strategy. On one occasion, the woman working the front office at Wellington Elementary threatened to call social services on me if I continued to sign in my girl late. True story. And, side note, calm down.

Even though I'm not 100% on time, every time, I can say that I have proven Mr. Grove wrong and promise to not arrive late to my own funeral. In fact, I don't think I've been late to anyone's funeral and plan to not be there at all for mine. Except in spirit, of course.