I admit it: I’m one of those pathetic assholes obsessed with being, not on time, but ten minutes early. The one waiting for you, ambling around on the sidewalk from the station to the television shop and back to the station, when you finally arrive.

I calculate to the minute how long it will take to reach a destination, adjusted for weather and traffic conditions, the probability of mechanical trouble, and then add fifteen minutes just for the hell of it.

I will never understand people who arrive places almost late (or as they like to call it, “on time”).

I will really never understand people who overcommit, agree to be two or more places at the same time – and then actually somehow manage to keep all their appointments by rushing around.

So this morning, when it looked as if both girls would be ready to leave, not on time (which some people would call ten minutes early) but ten minutes early, hair and teeth brushed, dressed, lunch packed shoes on, glasses found and books packed, I was very pleased.

“Great,” I said to the little one. “Ready to go, are we?”
“Yep.”
“Turtle fed?” I asked the big one.
“Yep.”
“Oh,” my wife said. “By the way…”
Fuck, fuck, fuckity fuck, I thought.
“Have you seen your picture in the paper yet?” she asked our youngest daughter. We get this local paper that stimulates its circulation by printing lots of pictures of lots of people – politicians tapping kegs at one event or another, or toasting each other, some weenie local artist opening an exhibition of paintings of something, various clubs doing various things, flood damage, traffic accidents, people eating sausages, kids who got straight “A”s. Group photos are nice, since they can sell 30 copies of the paper with a single photo that way.

“No! Where?” she asked.
“Papa will show you.”

So I found the paper and found the page. “Here you are,” I said. End-of-year performance by her ballet class. A dozen little girls in pink and white, except that it’s a grainy black and white photo. Our daughter in a correct stance, smiling at the camera.

“Cool!”

And it is. We’ve all been in the paper now. Someone we know is in every issue. It’s neat. When I was a kid, none of us were ever in the paper, except for my uncle.

“Oh, look,” my mother would say. “Your brother’s in the paper again.”
“He must have stopped taking his Anabuse,” my father would say.

Finally got the kids packed into the car, dropped them off at their respective destinations and made it to work. Almost late.