Ideal Time

Timekeeping is something that I sporadically have issues with. Indeed, it's something that has haunted most of my life. Most people never forget their first day of (secondary) school, but mine was memorable for all the wrong reasons - the fear that I wouldn't be able to find anything, given the knowledge that I'd managed to turn up about 15 minutes late. I remember running into some sixth formers and asking 'where is P7?!' only to be told that the room 'P7 didn't exist', and was I looking for J7 or S7, or did I not mean to be looking for a room at all and, in fact, was just trying to find the class that was 7P? So I settled for the latter, and found myself in an empty classroom - bar the form tutor - who was inevitably waiting for 'the late girl'.

In fairness, during those early days I did live a small heart attack - two tube lines and 22 stops - away from school. And I was lucky enough to befriend the other six or so unfortunate souls who also lived well outside the London Borough of Barnet to warrant tube travel, a couple of which were in my year group, and consequently, upon becoming friends, we understood and accepted our individual tardy ways, and it became acceptable to be 15 minutes late for anything we were going to do, because we knew that we would collectively be at least 15 minutes late - and therefore, by some perverted logic, all turn up punctually tardy.

Anyway, after years of struggling with this condition - and I do believe it is a condition, mind - I have concluded the following:

My mind, and therefore my body, run on what I call 'ideal time'. So, in an ideal world, it would take me only 15 minutes to get ready. In an ideal world, tube journeys anywhere would take no more than half an hour. And walking distance, in an ideal world, would be no longer than 10 minutes.

Sadly, I do not live in an ideal world.

'Real time', in fact, runs on an " 'ideal time' + 30 minutes " formula - give or take; (I have yet to refine this into an exact science.)

Armed with this fact, and three forms of alarms in the early morning, I am slowly becoming a punctual, reliable and tardy-free person.