“I have to go, I’m running late. Actually I’m running in time. You know what I mean.” And my daughter knew exactly. If you’re on time, you’re late. That was a snippet of a conversation before I set off for a doctor’s appointment this morning. Even in these days of reduced time and extra spacing in the waiting room, and for some doctors not even opening the waiting room but waiting in the parking lot, I tend to budget my travel time for a 15 minutes early arrival.
Unfortunately my drive time estimating skills are not that good. I plan with the help of four travel windows. Anything within the neighborhood is 15 minutes. If the destination is on my side of town it’s a 30 minute drive. Across town or into a neighboring county and I plan for 60 minutes on the road. Anything farther away than that I take a snack, several bottles of water, stop to fill up the gas tank, and in winter check that the tire chains are in the trunk. Most times this admittedly somewhat bizarre approach has served me well. I’m usually at my destination somewhere within those extra 15 minutes and when I’m outside the window it is almost always with more than 15 minutes to spare. That’s okay, I don’t mind waiting. Then are days like today.
The drive to the physician’s office for today’s visit is a legitimate 35 minute drive but it’s on this side of town and thus gets the 30 minute travel window. Hey, I don’t make the rules – well, okay, maybe, um, uh.
So I set off on my 30 minute drive and everything was going fine. Just because I was only a quarter of the way there and I used up 20 of those minutes was no reason to panic. I hadn’t hit the 4 lane highways yet. I could make up that time. And I did. Sort of. I got onto the highway and with one eye on the dash clock, one on the speedometer, one on the road and another on the rear view mirror, I watched my way all the way to the parking lot only 10 minutes late which was still 5 minutes early so I wasn’t on time but I was doing fine. I pulled into a spot, strapped on my mask, tripped over the door sill thingy or whatever it’s called on a car, hit the lock button, rescued the keys from inside, hit the lock about again, and marched to the door. Whew! And there I read, “To minimize contact in the waiting area please do not enter until 5 minutes before your scheduled appointment time.”
Ah…right on time!
The Real Reality Show Blog 
Humor in the smallest places. What a delight you are. I was grinning through the whole blog.
Thank you! 😁
Going full smiley face. cheers
Most high praise. Thank you!