Day 18 of the Jeff Goins 500 Words Challenge is to write about "Waiting", and by Jaysus do we all wait a lot!
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| Image source: Cardinal Chronicle. |
Somethings we just have to wait for: paint to dry, the next episode of Game of Thrones, the traffic lights to change to green, an old person to cross the road, our turn in the queue at the shop, the rain to stop, the summer to come, the bathroom, the waiter to look our way, sunburn to stop hurting, the ads to be finished, or wine to breath.
But there's nothing like waiting to make people angry. I once had an appointment to see a specialist in St Vincent's hospital. The appointed time was 10:00 in the morning. What I did not know was that everyone else was given the same time. I was the last of dozens to be seen at about 17:00 (no exaggeration). Sadly today for many people a 7 hour wait in a hospital is nothing.
Sometimes people don't want to wait - and feel they are entitled to jump a queue. Back on the 14th February 2010 I blogged about being "Bossed out of it for the last time" when a woman who only had "one thing" to buy tried (successfully) to skip past me and one other person in the queue. I'm sure we have all been in the situation where a person with the "right change" who is "in a hurry" feels that the rest of us losers should get out of their way. In the recent words of Ross O'Carroll-Kelly (in a tweet):
But there's nothing like waiting to make people angry. I once had an appointment to see a specialist in St Vincent's hospital. The appointed time was 10:00 in the morning. What I did not know was that everyone else was given the same time. I was the last of dozens to be seen at about 17:00 (no exaggeration). Sadly today for many people a 7 hour wait in a hospital is nothing.
Sometimes people don't want to wait - and feel they are entitled to jump a queue. Back on the 14th February 2010 I blogged about being "Bossed out of it for the last time" when a woman who only had "one thing" to buy tried (successfully) to skip past me and one other person in the queue. I'm sure we have all been in the situation where a person with the "right change" who is "in a hurry" feels that the rest of us losers should get out of their way. In the recent words of Ross O'Carroll-Kelly (in a tweet):
People who think having the exact change handy gives them a licence to skip you and everyone else in the petrol station queue can FRO.— Ross O'Carroll-Kelly (@RossOCK) May 9, 2016
For non-RO'C-K fans, FRO means "fock right off").
Like most people I'm not good at waiting. I get frustrated driving a car around the city because I cannot go to the top of the lights. I will sometimes wait a little longer at home before leaving so that I don't have to wait as much on the road. Road rage is the outcome of failing to wait for others on the road - remember, you don't own that space in front of you. Imagine if everybody had manners on the road all the time? Wait your turn.
There's the thing - the mannerly thing to do is to wait your turn. But often I find if I wait for my turn, others take advantage of this. At the Gaiety Theatre to see "The Matchmaker" a few weeks ago a man blatantly positioned himself in front of me while I was waiting my turn at the bar during the interval. I genuinely think he didn't see a problem with doing this - what an asshole. Did I do anything - no.
Perhaps the most important wait of all - the thirstiest Irishman on the hottest day will wait for his pint of Guinness to settle. And there's no one who embodies waiting more than Joe McKinney in the famous 1994 ad for Guinness - enjoy:
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