The Earliest I've Ever Been Late

I’m a latecomer. That’s it. No ifs, ands or buts. I have been perennially late for just about everything in my 30-plus years of gainful employment. It’s not tremendously late, mind you, only 5-10 minutes with the occasional semi-annual ‘really really bad overslept’ kind of late. There were exceptions. One was spending the last two years getting up at 3 in the morning to get to work at 4:30 at a radio station 30 miles away. There was simply no nagging phone calls, no vacuum cleaner sale reps, no traffic on the Interstate and no emergency calls from the Mrs. to get the kids to school…no obstructions at all. Picking them up was another matter. I often lagged behind in getting my stories on the air, finding the right sound bite, finding the right verbiage to tell the story and putting it all down for someone else to decipher. Sometimes I would be on the road covering political debates, election coverage, snow and ice storms and the like. In that case, Mommy would have to hit the road in the middle of her work day to get them. In my present place of employment, there are no qualms about bringing the babies up here for a while if the need exists, and it exists a lot. The staff loves them and they love the computers. I love this place, because all I have to do is start at point ‘A’ and work my way to point ‘B’ when I depart for home. Even with changes in between semesters, Finals Week and the holidays, it’s all cut and dried. Still, the lateness continues to plague me. I think the problem is I simply do not have a viable eight-hour window in which to get my beauty rest. I normally work from 3:30 in the afternoon to midnight. When I get home, there is the ‘wind-down’ period, usually comprised of watching the late news, Adult Swim on Cartoon Network and the occasional movie on my recently-expanded cable system. By the time I do get to bed, I have somewhere between 3-4 hours before I have to get up and take my daughter to the bus. Many has been the time that I simply stayed up all night and waited until the sun came up to surprise the family with bacon and eggs I learned to make from the local Waffle House. After the first kidling is delivered, I return home to make sure the other one is getting dressed, but at least Mommy takes him to school on her way to work. This leaves me with another wind-down period and about 6 hours. It doesn’t sound bad at all, but the part where I have to be awake enough to operate heavy machinery takes its toll. My body still wants the entire eight, unimpeded. As a result, I am usually in a rush get to the office. My wife finally suggested I start making use of my alarm clock. Now there’s a novel concept. Did it work? For a while, then things started getting in the way again. Let’s use today as a typical scenario; 2:40pm…the alarm goes off the first time with National Public Radio news, in which the newscaster drones on about the Pope’s visit, the recent slump in the economy and the mortgage crisis. I hit the snooze bar. 2:45pm…N.P.R. continues with ‘All Things Considered’, which makes the MacNeill-Lehrer Report sound like ‘WWE Friday Night Smackdown’. Snooze bar again. 2:50pm…The buzzer goes off this time, which offers the first serious rustle from Slumberland. At the same time, the phone rings. Now I’m up across the bed to answer, only to get a dead silence on the other end. 2:55pm…In the shower, wondering if my hair is too oily or too encrusted with dandruff today. I eventually conclude it’s too smelly, so I borrow the kids ‘Horton Hears a WhoBerry’ Shampoo and Conditioner. 3:02pm…I quickly grab a towel (never mind the fact there is no one in the house, modesty prevails) to answer the phone again. My son is calling to remind me he does not have Cub Scouts today and he will have to be picked up. He left a message on the machine while I was in the shower, which means he’s panicking a little. He has gotten me with this on at least one other occasion, prompting me to call my wife at the office, so she can tell me the babysitter already knows this and will get him at the regular time. I feel like a total goof for being left out of the loop on that situation. 3:08pm…Blow dry hair, followed by teeth brushing and further de-odorizing. The Axe Super-Sexy, He-Man scented, Women-Will-Follow-You-Anywhere stick is in the other bathroom, so I settle for my wife ‘Secret’, followed by a brief bur shrill WOOOOHHOOOO…a wee bit on the chilly side today (the last phrase courtesy of Berkely Breathed). Truthfully, pleasing my olfactory senses really doesn’t make that much of a difference, since I’m lighting up a cigarette as soon as I start the car. I always wind up smelling like an aroma-therapeutic chimney. 3:10pm…I’m dressed. Dressing had never been a problem, since I freely admit to wearing some of the same material for two days in a row (which material is best left unsaid), but I do pick out the new stuff before hitting the sack. Still, it involves at least five minutes standing in the laundry room, ankle-thick in dirty clothes, shouting, ‘Someone has stolen my socks’ to no one in particular. 3:15pm…Open the front door, unlock the car and check the mail, making sure to return the mail to the house and memorize what we got. The wife always asks me what we got once I get settled and let her know I am once again among the living. If I don’t know the contents of the mail, she gives out with a little sigh as if to suggest, ‘What am I going to do with you?’ 3:17pm…Lock the door, head to the car, remember the forecast calls for rain, reopen the door and get the umbrella. 3:19pm…Re-lock the front door, head back to the car, realize the trash can is still on the curb, return said container to its rightful place and finally close the car door. Fumble for my keys, mistaking the house key for the car key. 3:21pm…At last, I hit the road, swamped in a massive traffic tie-up of other parents getting their children from the same school where my son is now waiting for the sitter. We pass and feebly wave at each other before moving on. I avoid the main thoroughfare, mindful of parents and teens departing the high school down the block. 3:25pm…Errantly pass by another elementary school and a middle school, which doubles the traffic, plus there is now a car in front of me going 10 mph with a tuft of blue hair barely discernable over the steering wheel…old people (the last line almost verbatim from an article by P. J. O’Roarke, but aptly applies here). 3:30pm…I hit the parking lot and get out. From here it takes about four minutes to get to the office. 3:34pm…the supervisor is opening the door to run an errand, sees me approaching, looks at her watch and frowns disapprovingly. Curses! Foiled again.