Angela Mollard: When running late what’s a few minutes between friends?

EVERY Wednesday at 7am, I power walk with my friend Camilla. Look, I say, it’s 7am. I turn up at about 7.02 or 7.03 with award-worthy precision.

Generic of a classic white double bell alarm clock.

EVERY Wednesday at 7am I power walk with my friend Camilla. It’s probably not true power walking — we certainly don’t look like Kel from Kath ‘n Kim — but it’s fast enough to burn calories yet still power talk.

Look I say it’s 7am. It is for Camilla. I turn up at about 7.02 or 7.03 with award-worthy precision. If you’re going to be late, surely it’s important to be reliably so.

Anyway I’d noticed Camilla had been slightly cool of late. When I did my blustery “sorry the kids/cat/Facebook/bins/rain/knot in my joggers slowed me down” spiel she didn’t smile. Which in any other Swede you wouldn’t notice, but Camilla is one of those rare Scandis who always does.

Then last Wednesday it wasn’t just her waiting on the stone wall. She’d brought her husband Steve. It was 7.04am. Clearly they were about to stage an intervention.

Since the best line of defence is attack, I got in first.

“OK guys I know I have a problem. I accept we agreed 7am but I needed to have tea and toast because you wouldn’t want me to faint and bang my head and have a seizure because then you’d have to take me to hospital and that’d make you really late.

Also I had to change my aqua top because I remembered you have an aqua top and since we’re both blonde and have similar sunglasses I didn’t want you to think I’d come over all Single White Female. Although come to think of it, I should’ve worn the aqua top because then Jacko might think I’m you and wouldn’t cock his leg and pee on me.

In fact, why am I apologising for being late when you have a dog so ill-disciplined he can’t distinguish your friends from a lamppost ….”

Steve looked perplexed. “What are you on about Ange?”

Apparently he’d not been hauled along as remonstrative ammo but was planning a lovely swim in the ocean while I walked with his wife. Any other man would’ve dived off at that moment but Steve writes letters to the editor. Sometimes daily. He likes a bit of biff. “Mm, I think I’ll walk with you for a bit.”

What is time anyway?

Camilla, meanwhile, simply pointed to her watch. 7.09am.

“It’s not 7.09!,” I yelped in much the same tenor as Jacko when I accidentally stand on his paw.

“No but I set my watch five minutes early to help me be on time.”

Of course she’s bloody well on time! She’s Scandinavian. Aren’t they all born with a Breitling on their arm? Where I hail from they make rugby players and Brendon McCullum.

Of course I didn’t say that. Instead, I took a long hard look at myself — well, as much as you can when you’re power walking and don’t want to step on someone else’s dog — and decided I need to change.

I’m not chronically, grievously or, I hope, unforgivingly late but I typically overshoot an agreed meeting time by a minute or four. I don’t agree with the famously louche Evelyn Waugh that “punctuality is the virtue of the bored” and neither am I late due to “serene contempt for the illusion we call time.”

No, my lack of punctuality is not poetic. It’s not indignant or superior and it’s not borne of disrespect — although it’s obviously disrespectful. Rather, my tardiness leaves me in such a sweaty, stressed, self-flagellating state, I regularly admonish myself.

“Oh for goodness sake Angela, just set your alarm ten minutes earlier,” I’ll say, smacking my forehead with my palm which unfortunately leaves others thinking I’m not just late but also mad.

So how do you learn to be punctual? I was going to set up an interview with Diana DeLonzor, author of Never Be Late Again, but became so worried I’d be late for the phone call I dropped 12 bucks on her book instead.

Trying to be on time: Angela Mollard.

Apparently there’s seven reasons why people are late — seven! Surely it’d be easier solving a genuinely heinous character fault like, say, bombasticism or dishonesty.

Turns out I’m a thrillseeker — I like running through streets with the wind in my hair, I try to get one more thing done before I leave, I underestimate the time it takes to get places, my life is over-scheduled and I get distracted on the way out — as would Ms DeLonzor if she had two kids who make it their life’s work imploring me to sign notes, supply cash and unearth missing uniforms five minutes before I’m due anywhere.

Well not anymore.

Earlier this week I arrived 20 minutes early to meet a friend for coffee. I laid out my clothes the night before, calculated it would take me 10 minutes longer to drive than it did, and left the kids to scrabble for their own coins. It was brilliant. While I waited I flicked through a newspaper, gazed at the sky and listened to the Rolling Stones.

But the real test comes on Wednesday. I plan to be there at 6.55am. With my shoes already on.

*The author wishes it to be known that this column was filed an hour before deadline.