Tales from the High Road…
I consider it a gross abuse of my kindness and familial obligation to be tardy to an event you have asked me to help you with. OMG!
Case and point: Helping my brother move the last pieces of furniture from his old apartment to his new one. He asks for my help because I have a truck and trailer (I totally “fit in” here in Texas, who knew?). I told him I wanted to get started at 9am because (SURPRISE!) it is still hot in Texas in September, and lately, by noon the heat is in the high nineties and I am even less interested to do any heavy manual labor when it gets that hot. I make it clear that getting an early start is paramount and therefore he should be ready on time. We end conversation for the evening with the expectation that I will be by to pick him up at 9am to head to his old apartment…
I wake up early, get ready, even manage to get some homework done in advance for one of my classes–capitalizing on waking up before my alarm. When I am ready to go, I text him letting him know I am on my way to pick him up, no response. I text him again when I pull in front of his apartment building and still nothing. How did I know this mofo wasn’t going to be awake? Because knowing damned well he had to be up this morning, he was still awake at 3am last night. How do I know he was still up at 3am? Because he uses an app that logs what time a message was viewed, much like Facebook messenger, but for texting and he finally looked at the last text message I sent him at 830pm at 250am. Seriously?!
That’s another pet peeve. Not replying in a timely fashion to a text. If you ask me to use an app so you don’t go over on your mobile phone bill, then USE IT!! It ceases to be effective if you don’t check it except sporadically. I would think that if you were in actively conversing with someone, unless you were sure that the conversation was over, you should check just to be certain there wasn’t an additional message. Or a final message. Or better yet, pay attention to the little notification sound your phone makes when you have received a message and ACTUALLY check your phone.
If however, you have sounds bleeping from your phone for every damned thing, and you have ceased looking at your phone because your phone bleeps for every damned thing, you should remove all the unimportant notification sounds so you DO pay attention to the important messages. I am using the communication methods you requested of me. What should I do next time? Smoke signals? Semaphores from my porch? Messenger pigeon?? Aargh!!
It is also not effective if you go to bed with your ringer down or off knowing someone is expected at your door knocking to pick your ass up in the morning. That is just rude, lazy and irresponsible.
There is an evident and obvious difference in “book smarts” and “street smarts”. I may not have my college degree yet, but I don’t need a master’s to be responsible and effective. What I may lack on paper, I make up for in spades with life experience. I am no mental slouch. Don’t get that impression. I believe I am very intelligent. However, I don’t operate solely in my brain or in theory.
Life should be lived in the real world. And this real world says that if you stay up late and know you have to wake up early the next morning, don’t make excuses. Just get your ass up and get ready like you should–and not take your sweet ass time about it either. As I sat there aggravated and hungry (because I had planned to grab breakfast on the way to his old apartment), he leisurely padded around getting himself ready. Dude!! Priorities!!
What in the world?? Some people apparently need someone to light a fire under their butt to get them moving. I am not one of those people. There are only twenty-four hours in my day. How many must he have in his, since he seems ready to just piss several away strolling from point A to B like he has all the time in the world?
In the end, we completed everything on time and we finished by noon, and I did get my breakfast on the way to his apartment. But I had to spend most of the morning suppressing my urge to rage at him, because it was pointless. The damage was already done, and this was the last hurrah for his move from one apartment to the other. I figured the most effective thing to do would be to keep silent, just get it done, and then move on with my day. Sometimes the high road, is the only road…
