One thing Americans hate to do is wait.
You wait at the doctor’s office. You stop in at the grocery store on the way home, and you wait at the checkout counter.
Then, on your way home, you get stuck at road construction, and you wait there in traffic until your eyes glaze over.
In the big scheme of things, these little wait periods are not that big of a deal. There are worse things in life, like root canals. Ingrown toenails. Opera.
But also in the big scheme of things, if I could collect all those little frustrating times I’ve had to wait, I’d have enough time saved up for a good long vacation.
I’ve tried to be philosophical about waiting, and through the years I’ve come up with a few tactics that help me hold the reins on my normally impatient personality.
Let’s say I’m waiting at the doctor’s office. That is a good time, I have found, to catch up on the latest issue of People magazine, which I would never buy and never admit in public that I read. But when I’m in the doctor’s office with nothing to do but wait, and I pick up the magazine and start to read an article about whether Count Jean de Breteuil really had a hand in the deaths of Jim Morrison and Janis Joplin, my boredom immediately evaporates. When the nurse finally calls me in for my appointment and I haven’t had time yet to finish the article, I want to say: “Can’t you wait a minute?”
Later, on the way home when I’m stuck in line at the grocery store behind the dear senior citizen who is paying for his bananas and milk with a check and having trouble finding a pen to write with, I find the People magazine at the checkout counter and start to read more of that article I didn’t have time to finish at the doctor’s office. Quickly enough, however, the dear senior citizen finds his pen and moves through the line, and I’m left hungering once again for the conclusion of the story.
Then, on the way home when I’m stuck at a road construction site, I realize I might have time to look up that article online and read to the end.
But, wouldn’t you know? Just as I get to the juicy part, the traffic starts up again. What’s up with that? The digital road sign promised we would be stopped for up to 15 minutes, plenty of time to read a few more paragraphs. And yet, I’ve got to move on because the guy behind me, who obviously has not yet read the magazine, is beeping his horn and waving his hand.
I gotta ask: What’s everybody in such a gol-dang hurry about these days?
Hedberg may be contacted at kathyhedberg@gmail.com or (208) 983-2326.
