Over the past few weeks I have encountered several of my neighbours at slightly different times of the morning as I leave for work.
On the days I am early, I meet one set. On the days I am late, I meet another.
I have since been using them as reference points for how early/late I am. If I see neighbour family with primary-school-age daughter, I'm early. If I see ACS tennis brothers, I'm very early. If cute neighbour takes the same lift, I'm late. I've never been very late. (And I always get to work on time). At other times the irregulars will turn up at the lift - the neighbour who lives in Little Amazonia, the retiree out for a walk, the maid with the big dog (who is very considerate and takes the next lift since I'm not good around animals, and certainly don't want to be shedded on before work).
I wonder if they also use me as a reference point. Do they also think to themselves "Shite it's that guy from the other end of the corridor - I'm late," or do they check their watches thinking "Maybe I could have slept five more minutes?"
Someday everybody will be earlier or later than usual at the same time and everything will go wrong.
1 comment:
Great blog post. Damn, why didn't I think of it first?
When I was teaching, I used to run into all the students in my block, some with bleary-eyed parents whom I wouldn't quite have trusted behind the wheel to take them to school. Now that I'm on office hours, I run into the wide-awake parents returning home after the 7.30 am dropoff and the other office drones like me headed to work. The thing about telling time by which neighbour you meet, is that all the office drones look suspiciously alike ...
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