Tim Time

“It ought to be plain how little you gain
by getting excited and vexed.
You'll always be late for the previous train,
and always on time for the next.”
― Piet Hein

Tim had been late all his life. His mother often reminded him she missed going on vacation because he wouldn’t leave her womb. He wondered what kind of mother would take a newborn to the beach, but the guilt persisted.

As a child, he was late for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Playmates were blocks away before he managed to show up for kickball appointments. The principal gave him his own chair in her office because he was so often tardy.

It wasn’t that he didn’t try to be on time. He sometimes joked he was “chronologically challenged,” but no one thought it was funny. His favorite client at the salon had let him style her hair for over 20 years, but she knew better than to expect him to be prompt. You’re just on “Tim Time,” she would say. Once, she sat him down and told him about all the clients he had lost because of his tardiness. He tried hard after that to be ‘almost’ on time, but it was like being an ADHD hound dog. “Look. I saw a squirrel! No, there’s a bird. Quick, catch that rabbit!”

Tim also loved electronic gadgets and apps. He constantly changed his phones and computers, which required him to stay up all night to install new Virtual Reality Networks. His installations rarely worked, so he spent hours online with tech services, meaning he would be late for his first appointment at 10 am and all the others the rest of the day.

The worst time was when he showed up late to his surprise 30th birthday party. His boyfriend had promised him dinner at a fancy restaurant, but when Tim showed up three hours late, all that remained were empty prosecco bottles, cold food and a 4-layer cake, fondant icing, and candles dribbling down the wall. That delay cost Tim plenty since his now ex-boyfriend charged everything to Tim’s credit card.

And, of course, all the ADD and lateness meant there were times when bills weren’t paid on time, like when he had his townhouse renovated. The contractor took months, but suddenly he wanted his money that day, and unfortunately, Tim forgot to change the autopay on his credit card so that it wouldn’t deduct the total amount that month, so when he wrote the contractor a check, it bounced, and the contractor started yelling, making Tim feel like a run-on sentence and giving him a throbbing headache.

Today, however, he is determined to be on time for a meeting with the banker to beg for a reduced-interest loan on his townhouse. Thinking ahead, he scheduled the appointment for 1 pm when he usually eats lunch. But of course, he stayed up late the previous night watching a movie and overslept. And today his customer is demanding two different kinds of highlights in her over-processed hair, and when he finally looks up, it’s already 1:30, and he hears a loud boom in the direction of his house, and he suddenly remembers the faulty gas space heater; he turned on that morning and forgot to turn off, and he supposes he will not get his new loan but he is glad for once he was late rather than being in his now defunct house when it went boom, boom, boom.

— opelikakat