That's A Tardy Slip

I'm a "Late Guy"....
That is, I'm one of those guys who is always showing up late for things. Doesn't matter what the function is, or whose feelings will be hurt -- if I'm supposed to be somewhere at a specific time, there is a nearly 100 percent chance that I will not make it there as promised. On a personal level, if you're depending on me to arrive when I said I would, you're in for a disappointment...and frankly, I stopped apologizing sincerely for that some time ago. There, I said it. The inescapable fact is that I simply lack an ability to manage or estimate time like a normal person, and anyone who thinks they can change this about me is just plain wrong. Sorry, but the plight of a Late Guy is a frustrating and lifelong one. I'm sure others in my position understand. We're tired of always having to make up excuses.


My lateness problem first became apparent when I was a teenager. I was young and inexperienced, so hadn't yet learned how to work around it, which often caused people great frustration. Like, as a lad of 17, my girlfriend would expect me to spend Christmas dinner with her family or something, and I'd say, "Sure, Babycakes. I'll be there at 1:30!" only to show up at 2:15. Her family would give me dirty looks, and I'd be all like, "Sorry, I thought it would only take ten minutes to make the 57 mile drive out here. My bad!" Also, I BARELY squeaked through high school because I was tardy so many times that I ran a serious risk of losing credit in multiple classes. Somehow, however, I charmed enough teachers into not marking down certain infractions of the attendance policy so I could slip by. Whew!

This issue extended to my early employment experiences, as well. As a very young man, I got in trouble at countless crappy restaurant jobs because managers, for some unknown reason, insist that employees be there at the time assigned to them on the work schedule. I'd roll in ten minutes after my shift was supposed to start, and never understood why the boss would be so irritated with me. It's just TEN MINUTES! That's an insignificant grain of sand in the cosmic bucket of time, if you really think about it. I mean, in the grand scheme of things, ten minutes is nothing to fret about, man! Why does the world insist on being so uptight about crap that means absolutely nothing?


One of the best jobs I ever had was at a bar and grill where the management didn't care when I showed up late. You know how come? Because I was such a good employee that my tardiness could be overlooked. See, this was in the period of my life (early 20s) when I started to find ways of dealing with my lateness by simply excelling in other areas besides punctuality. I've noticed that if you're REALLY good at one thing, people will let your other shortcomings slide. Well, I was a really good line cook who could juggle an insane number of tasks all at once, so the pub management looked the other way when I showed up 20 minutes late on a fairly regular basis. The same concept applied to my convenience store jobs. I always worked the midnight shift, when the boss will tolerate tardiness. See, in a convenience store, all the management really wants out of their midnight guy is for him to show up and not rob the place blind. I met both of those requirements, and therefore got away with everything else...unless, of course, someone wanted to be a JERK and report me for sleeping on the job....

As noted, my methods of working around my little time problem had to evolve over the years. By the time I was living on my own and had rent to pay, I could no longer risk relying solely on charm, and had to actually find of way of NOT being chronically late to work. My solution to the issue is actually quite simple and brilliant: I never lived more than a mile away from my place of employment. See, I am absolutely incapable of calculating how long it might take to get from one place to another (don't give me any crap about Google Maps; I don't understand it), but I DO know that it doesn't take very long at all to drive a mile. In fact, if necessary, a mile can be WALKED in, like, eight minutes (six, if you run, which I have done in a bind). Therefore, since the age of 24, I've prided myself on being clever enough to always rent a place that was within the immediate vicinity of my work, no matter how crappy it is. Under those circumstances, even if I were to oversleep, I could jump out of bed and make it work within five minutes.


The other coping mechanism I have developed for lateness is to be grossly EARLY for things. Like, if I have some city council meeting that I must attend five miles away, I'll make it my goal to leave a half hour before the scheduled start time. Since I don't know WHERE time goes, I'll most likely, under this model, actually leave about 15 minutes ahead of time (missing my target time by the standard 15 minutes), and get there right as the meeting starts. Perfect. However, if I've got to be in a place I've never been to before, I'll leave WAAAAY earlier than I need to. See, I take it as a given that I'll get lost trying to find any place new, so I've got to give myself an obscene amount of wiggle room to locate my destination. If the place is, say, ten miles away, I'll give myself an hour. People throw me crap about this, but they can shove it where the sun don't shine. I know what works for me, OK?

I remember I had to go on a trip recently with a group of coworkers to the fine city of Lansing, which is, like, 120 miles away. I told one of them that I wanted to leave three hours ahead of time because I expected to get lost on the way. One individual was like, "Why don't you print out directions?" Well, dear lady -- things don't work that way with me. Even with detailed directions, I'll still get lost. I accept that; why can't you?

Anyway, to all of the relatives who I've upset by showing up for Thanksgiving two hours after the scheduled meal start time, I say this: it's not you, it's me. See, I MEANT to be there on time, and it just didn't work out. I was staring at the carpet or something, and lost track of when I was supposed to leave. Perhaps on the way, I thought there would be time to make a pit stop at some highway-side Walmart, and didn't realize I'd been in there for three hours....It happens, and I don't know why.

Hey, speaking of things that I don't understand, here's a movie about children.

The Children (2008)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1172571/


Netflix description:
It's a classic English Christmas in the countryside -- snow on the ground, turkey in the oven, the laughter of frolicking children -- until the fun and games take a dark and deadly turn. Is something in the woods spurring the kids to murder? And why are grown-ups always the last to notice when things go horribly awry? There are no easy answers in this nasty little horror flick, but you'll never see Christmas the same way again.

This movie comes from England, so you know it's good. I mean, when people talk all sophisticated like those Englishers, there's bound to be lots of deep, artistic stuff going on (Europeans are all into art, you know). The movie is about psychotic children, but at least in this case, they're probably going to conduct their murders in a proper, polite sort of way, right?

Yes, in The Children, a group of city dwelling English types heads out to a cabin in the country to spend Christmas with family. There are lots of kids present, and MY GOD, are they annoying (if real life children are as loud as these brats, then I don't think I ever want to deal with them)! They create quite a ruckus while the yuppie adults try to enjoy a lovely weekend of wine drinking and organic tofu preparation, and then BLAM -- one of the kids gets sick. She's got some sort of mystery virus, it's implied, that is making her insane. She sees strange things, and starts sneaking around the house with a blank look in her eyes like there's something to hide. Soon, all of the other kids contract the disease and behave the same way.

The adults are too busy enjoying themselves in boring grown-up ways to notice...until, that is, one of them gets murderized by the psycho kids (scalped by a toboggan, actually). Next thing you know it, all heck has broken loose, and confused parents are frantically running around the rural compound, covered in blood, looking for their wayward children. Needless to say, most of them get brutally killed. Why the police don't show up, and exactly how the kids got infected with this crazy disease in the first place, are not explored.


For its first two acts, The Children is all style and virtually no substance. It's really just a bunch of irritating early 30-somethings sitting around in a cabin while spooky sound effects incessantly play in the background. In fact, those annoying, grossly-overused "whooosh-squuuel-SHHHHHHT" tension-building noises that you'll find in, like, 99 percent of major studio horror films nowadays nearly ruined this experience for me. I have trouble taking a film seriously when I know that its sound editor thought a constant stream of rusty gate sounds would be needed to make the thing scary.

Fortunately, once the mayhem begins, The Children thoroughly redeems itself. I mean, the kids are BRUTAL. They impale their OWN PARENTS on broken glass, broom sticks, and fire place pokers! Then, the parents must actually FIGHT BACK, killing the children, which blew my mind. See, I've always thought it was a taboo of movies to have kids kill people and then get graphically killed themselves, and this picture throws that restriction right out the window!

The audacity of this film's action during the third act is enough to make me forgive any of its previous shortcomings. The stupidity of the parents; the annoyingness of the children; the fact that our token hot chick spends the whole movie running around in the snow with nothing on but a short skirt, a t-shirt and fishnets without once acting as though she's freezing her behind off -- none of this stuff bothered me once the murderings got underway.


The film wraps up nicely with a satisfying ending, despite a few loose ends. I walked away from The Children thinking, "Wow, did they really just DO that?" One its surface, this film seems like a generic and totally hum-drum experience, but once I got past the preliminaries, I was impressed. The Children is well-acted, nicely shot, and although a bit cliche', fairly inspired in the end. I say horror fans should check this one out.

4 out of 5.

b.