HALF-PAST DELILAH

In high school I knew that I was never going to be the coolest girl. Not because I lacked the athletic qualifications of a cheerleader. Nor was it because I was ever cast in a shampoo commercial. Neither was it because I had a hot boyfriend in college. But it was because I was always the early bird.

I can’t help it. My father went to Culver Military Academy. He may not have been strict in many other ways but he certainly was a stickler for time.

Everything about him was methodic and it was almost like there was a bundy clock timing his every move. Although I was never like that, being the first in line has always been my thing.

Filipino time is perhaps the well of all our inefficiencies. We actually make an effort to be late to be cool. Me and my body can’t stand such a notion. So to sacrifice the cool quotient of arriving fashionably late, I came when the fluorescent lights in clubhouse where the party was being held were glaringly on. There a frazzled host in her hot Clairol rollers who was baffled by my prompt arrival catering to me desperately and irritatingly.

Never a picture of a happening party, but at least she could be assured that there was at least one guest.

It is said that life is all about timing. Married couples attest to their union as being born at the right time. Estranged duos also attribute timing to their list of woes. Is this really it? Was Spinoza right in saying that we’re all merely puppets and all is predestined? That all moments in life whether significant or not are merely soldiers of the sands of time?

If we are then why do people insist on being so-called fashionably late?

Is it to give an illusion of a glamorous life with a social schedule on full throttle? A hint of having a decidedly high-maintenance lifestyle with gowns delivered fresh from the couture salon and baths scented with roses and enriched with ceramide capsules? Or maybe it’s the desire to make a grand entrance. Very Marie Antoinette entering in full regalia while guests are already eating their cake?

I know of some who are late just because the concept of time escapes them. However, what really baffles me are those who are all for calculated tardiness. I know from etiquette class that the norm is 15 minutes max for dinners and parties half an hour. So why is it that all my well-heeled buddies wait for my roast chicken to lay an egg or my balloons to turn into condoms before they arrive?

I remember one friend who was quite tardy for one of my dinners and when I called to check up on her, she said in a blood curdling unaffected tone "Oh they’re there already?" "Yes, they are and we are ready to carve out your spleen for dinner," I wanted to say.

So again I have to ask what is so glamorous about fraying the plans of the night for the sake of social theatrics? Is it because an angry host is more interesting? Or perhaps guests doubling up with hunger pangs make for an exciting show? Simply possibly it may just be because this is how it works.

In high school I always thought of it as geeky but necessary to be prompt. But now I’d like to see myself as a social rebel. The geek who comes in on time, has first dibs on the champagne and getting stylishly irritated on the wasted time. Don’t you think its about time we came on time?