One Hour Early & Three Hours Late

Have you ever done something so incredibly stupid that you are happy you have an autonomic nervous system so you don’t have to remember to keep your heart beating or to breath. Today was my day.

I hate to be late for appointments. I’m usually very very early. I get ready this morning, go downtown to put gas in the car and get a little cash. It’s a two hour drive so I lining all my duck up in a row. I set out for the big city and no big thing. I’m taking my time because I know I’m going to be over an hour early anyway. I want that extra time just in case something happens. I won’t go into once I get into the city the lunatic drivers or being surprised my kidneys are still in place after going over those roads.

I for some reason took a wrong turn. I’m in a part of town I don’t want to be in, but fortunately found a nice elderly couple that gave me directions. I get to the place and I’m still an hour early.

I go to the receptionist and say “I’m an hour early but want to go ahead and check in”. She asked my name and looks at the computer and starts giggling. Now I know I don’t have a normal name, but I haven’t heard giggles about it in years. She looks up at me and says,”You’re appointment was for 10:00 am.” I know my appointment is at 2:00 pm and pull out the packet they sent me to show her. I say “See here it says….” I was pointing straight at 10:00 am. At that point I felt like melting and becoming one with the carpet. I told her I had just driven two hours and was there anyway I could wait or anything. She was very nice and went to the back to check. She comes back and said the doctor had left for the day. So I schedule another appointment for tomorrow at 2:00 pm. I ask her three times to be sure. In the morning when they open I’ll start calling to make sure it’s at 2:00 pm.

Usually I’m a lot harder on myself the other are on me. So while I’m berating myself, and driving back home, I get into one of those tractor trailer convoys. You know where there are five or six truck in the right lane and one trucker decides he can get past the other by driving 1 mile per hour faster. So for about ten miles I have a big truck in front of me and trucks to the side. Some idiot in a sports car comes up behind me and he must have been no more than two feet from my back bumper. He decides he want to start flashing his lights at me. Now with a truck in front and trucks beside me and an idiot behind me, I’m thinking, a little break, that's all I want is just a little break. One of the truckers takes mercy and lets me pull in front of him and the idiot shoot up to where I was. I look over and see a pair of feet dangling out of the passenger’s window and the stereo is so loud I can hear booming with my windows closed. I finally get out of all that mess and just when I get home it starts raining.

Now you might look at this and think, man did he have a bad day? But I’m being positive. Even though in the end I’ll have an eight hour drive for probably a ten minute appointment, I look at it this way.

1. My parking ticket was validated and the few minutes I was inside, I had to pay nothing.
2. I got there and back safe and sound.
3. It didn’t start raining until I got home, so I didn’t have to drive through the rain.
4. Foremost and finally after going through all of this, I should be having a raging migraine, but I don’t.

So life is good.