Joy & Austin 15: Standing for the Fetus

[JillyO]

I never show up early to someone's home. That's just rude. I'm more likely to walk around the block or awkwardly lurk around the door waiting for the correct time to come around.

[Jinder Roles]

I run on island time. So if I say I'm leaving soon, it means I just got in the shower. 

Last year, my housemates were quite punctual. If we agreed to go the store at 10am, they'd be ready at that exact time. I took it to mean 10ish (but I'm also perpetually tired and have crippling anxiety so that slowed me down some)

I never understood why they'd be in a rush to do something that had no time limit/was supposed to be fun. To me, if you have an estimate  of how long something will take, planning every minute defeats the purpose. Time limits make me hella anxious. 

They were also anal about punctuation in texts. I remember them agonizing over trivial punctuation and sentence structure like a DM was a damn academic essay. Watching them freak out if someone didn't reply immediately was also quite amusing. 

[Playagirl]

@feministxtian, @SapphireSlytherin, @Demonfan and @JillsFlowerHeadband. Finally an interesting topic in a Duggar thread and I had to miss it!!!  Fellow car enthusiast here but I am still very much a newbie (though I'm learning as fast as my aging brain will let me).  

I lean towards older cars and like body restoration more than motor rebuilding. Hubby and I restored a 55 Chevy a couple of years ago and are now working on a 54 Ford. It's next to impossible to find parts for the 54 when you live in Canada and have a limited budget. It's a good thing my favourite thing to do is scrounge through boxes of old parts at swap meets - my idea of nirvana. Once the 54 is on the road I'll have to learn how to drive a 'three on the tree'.

Carry on with the snark, y'all.

[HarleyQuinn]

Jill's birthday message sounds like it's meant for a 10 year old, not a 20 year old.

Carlin's is cute. I remember loving that quote when I was a teen.

[SapphireSlytherin]

@Playagirl - three on a tree is easy, so long as you remember up-and-back is reverse, while down-and-back is first.

Can you already drive a standard? 

[Playagirl]

2 minutes ago, SapphireSlytherin said:

@Playagirl - three on a tree is easy, so long as you remember up-and-back is reverse, while down-and-back is first.

Can you already drive a standard? 

Yep, I can drive a standard but am not confident about my ability to transfer that knowledge to the steering column where the gears aren't clearly marked. I foresee much clashing of gears and stalling of engines in my future

[SapphireSlytherin]

Nah - it's really no biggie:

 

R        2

|   /    |

1         3

 

You'll be fine!

[CorruptionInc.]

1 hour ago, Playagirl said:

Once the 54 is on the road I'll have to learn how to drive a 'three on the tree'.

My first car from 1965 was like this - it's how I learnt to drive. Had to learn stick shift with the next car and now I drive automatics. Can't say I miss Manual (standard) as much as I wished I would!

[Bad Wolf]

I remember teaching Wolf Boy to drive a stick. He got stuck at an intersection, and we both had to jump out and run around the car to change places. Good times. We had that little Celica for 21 years.

[nastyhobbitses]

1 hour ago, Jinder Roles said:

I run on island time. So if I say I'm leaving soon, it means I just got in the shower. 

Last year, my housemates were quite punctual. If we agreed to go the store at 10am, they'd be ready at that exact time. I took it to mean 10ish (but I'm also perpetually tired and have crippling anxiety so that slowed me down some)

I never understood why they'd be in a rush to do something that had no time limit/was supposed to be fun. To me, if you have an estimate  of how long something will take, planning every minute defeats the purpose. Time limits make me hella anxious. 

They were also anal about punctuation in texts. I remember them agonizing over trivial punctuation and sentence structure like a DM was a damn academic essay. Watching them freak out if someone didn't reply immediately was also quite amusing. 

Oh lord, I'm basically your housemates. I'm obsessively punctual - to the point where I find myself fuming and/or jumping to the conclusion that all of my friends were kidnapped by ISIS and are now lying dead in a ditch if I say "let's get dinner at 7" and people show up at 7:10. I know in my rational brain and my heart of hearts that punctuality is very much a cultural thing and not everyone runs on my schedule, but if someone says "on my way", I generally assume that to mean "I am currently on the subway right now and am texting you in the rare window of cell service I get while on the train", and just don't get the concept of being really late for things unless something terrible happened. Again, I know it's a cultural thing and I do my best to make allowances for it, but it's hard for me sometimes. Lateness makes me anxious, and it was drilled into me from childhood that being late is disrespectful.

[Jinder Roles]

@nastyhobbitses I'm sorry on behalf of all us untimely folk. I guess I don't say "yeah I'm getting ready now" because that would be rude? And yes, you should definitely be on time for certain things.

I personally struggle because I'm often anxious and overwhelmed. I tend to be more punctual when I'm not as stressed, which is never. 

Other things are purely cultural. You'll never catch me at a party early. The time it's starts is when I'm usually doing my makeup 

[Gillyweed]

I find that no matter how late I leave, I'm still early. It's supposed to take me 15-20 minutes to walk from my dorm to my classes. If I leave at 12:30, I'll get there at 12:50. But if I leave at 12:40, I somehow still end up getting there at 12:50. It's like a curse.

A lot of times I'll end up heading out earlier than I should just because I'm bored at home, and will be more entertained walking around the block once or twice than just sitting on the couch. Or for work, I'm always afraid I'll hit traffic and end up being late, so I end up getting there like 20 minutes early.

[feministxtian]

2 hours ago, CorruptionInc. said:

My first car from 1965 was like this - it's how I learnt to drive. Had to learn stick shift with the next car and now I drive automatics. Can't say I miss Manual (standard) as much as I wished I would!

I love driving a stick...except for traffic and stoplights...I read somewhere that the ability to drive a stick is a fading art...supposedly having a stick is the BEST protection against auto theft. 

There's just something about winding that motor out between shifts that's just flat out HOT!!! 

[Markie]

Hi had an aunt and uncle who were always chronically late. Mom would invite them for dinner and they would stroll in an hour or so late. The annoyed my mother to no end. One night dad and I suggested we eat at 6:00 as planned. My aunt and uncle came in as everyone else was having dessert and coffees. Mom told them to help themselves from the stove. They tended to arrive much closer to the given time after that. 

[Justmurrayed]

I get super anxious if I'm not 10 minutes early for anything, which of course means I am always like 30 minutes early to somewhere I've never been. Parties, I'll be right on time, because I don't want to intrude on them getting things ready. I absolutely HATE people who are late for things. I'll admit for people who are always late I tell them a different time, because to me it's a win-win. They aren't late and I don't get anxious or mad. 

[feministxtian]

Growing up a military brat and being married to a (now retired) military man...I'm positively neurotic about punctuality. The motto was "if you're 10 minutes early, you're on time, if you're on time you're late". Almost any destination around here is less than 30 minutes away...however, I leave the house 30 minutes before I'm supposed to be somewhere. Work? 15 minute drive, I get there 15 minutes early. Church? literally 5 minutes away...I'm 25 minutes early. 

Yes, it's a "thing" with me...

[NakedKnees]

Chronically late person here, and also someone who's anxious about being early. I hate being among the first people to arrive to social events. I much prefer to just sneak in to the action. Serving myself from the stove at a dinner event sounds amazing. Professional meetings and appointments and stuff are different, but I still find myself arriving five minutes early or less, rather than the recommended fifteen minutes early.

I get why people are punctual and why they have the opposite experience with anxiety. As long as no one acts superior about it, I'm fine with it (I live in a very late-oriented culture, so I'm lucky). 

If I had a nickel for every time I've heard that late people are selfish or value their time over other people's (read: punctual people's time) I'd be rich. Even the "on time is late" stuff sort of bothers me, just because I get that that's just a cute saying, but some people take it literally, which doesn't make sense to me. On time is, in fact, on time.

[Marly]

8 hours ago, Markie said:

Hi had an aunt and uncle who were always chronically late. Mom would invite them for dinner and they would stroll in an hour or so late. The annoyed my mother to no end. One night dad and I suggested we eat at 6:00 as planned. My aunt and uncle came in as everyone else was having dessert and coffees. Mom told them to help themselves from the stove. They tended to arrive much closer to the given time after that. 

My oldest brother, a good friend, and two good friends of my parents' have the same habit. You can count on it that they are always at least half an hour late (that's if you're lucky), but most of the time they are at least an hour late. Like @Chewing Gum, I'm also from the mid-Netherlands, and punctuality here is the norm. Most of the time, though, if you let the people who’ve invited you know that you are running late, they usually won’t mind, as you at least did the polite thing of letting them know you won’t be there exactly on time. (And if this is not something that happens all the time). My brother and these friends, however, were/are always late without letting us know they would be late. Or they would call us half an hour after they were actually supposed to be there, and say “we are on our way now, so we’ll be a bit late!”. Yes, we know you’ll be late because you already are half an hour late  -__-
A couple of years ago my parents, having grown frustrated enough with their friends never being on time, started to invite the 'always late' friends an hour earlier than everyone else. Of course exactly that one time they managed to be on time, so they arrived an hour before everyone else. X’D
We now do the same with my brother, and with him it works. If we have something planned with the family, we tell him a different starting time, and then he ends up being there on time with everyone else. We tried talking to him about trying to be more punctual, but he just doesn’t really care when it comes to social gatherings and events. He believes it characterizes him in a positive way. (Yes, he actually said that). Although I agree that for a birthday party it doesn’t really matter that much if he’s late, he also managed to be late for a theater show that we were going to for the yearly family theater visit and that my parents had given me and my brothers as a gift. The reason he was late was that he 'thought he had more time to eat his dinner than he actually had’. I found his lateness in that case very ungrateful towards my parents.

[Demonfan]

When I go to India to visit my family people's casual attitude towards being on time really stresses me. I know that this is a me issue though, and they have a different cultural norm, so I work on dealing with the stress. If we have a 10:00 appointment, they will start making tea at 9:55. It is like cognitive dissonance for me! Lol. They think I am silly to go on time, as the person we are meeting will be late themselves. It's a challenge for me. 

I also love to drive a manual transmission. My everyday car is also a performance car, so I get to do it everyday. It really is thrilling on a nice open stretch of road...

[Dutch_girl]

10 hours ago, feministxtian said:

I love driving a stick...except for traffic and stoplights...I read somewhere that the ability to drive a stick is a fading art...supposedly having a stick is the BEST protection against auto theft. 

There's just something about winding that motor out between shifts that's just flat out HOT!!! 

That's funny, in the Netherlands a car with a manual transmisson is the normal. Until a few years ago only old ladies drove automatic. The last couple of years more and more new cars are automatics, but most of them are lease-cars. 

[VelociRapture]

14 hours ago, HarleyQuinn said:

Jill's birthday message sounds like it's meant for a 10 year old, not a 20 year old.

Carlin's is cute. I remember loving that quote when I was a teen.

Well, in Jill’s defense she may still view her eldest as a kid. It can be hard for some parents to admit their babies are all grown up. 

I still think her message was better than the one Joy’s “grandparents” wrote. Not a single mention of God in Jill’s. Praise Rufus! 

[Queen]

As a kid and teen I used to be on time all the time, almost never late to anything. As an adult, this has somehow gotten harder. Nowadays I'm often punctual or late but never early. I've turned out to be the one I used to get irritated about  When other people show up earlier than they've supposed to, like 30  min early I get angry with myself since I see them as being better people than me who's always getting there the last minute myself. Does that make sense?

[SapphireSlytherin]

Yeah, manual trannies are still the norm in Europe. We always have a manual rental. Especially fun when you're sitting in the right seat and shifting with your left hand.

As for being on time actually being "on time." I disagree. On time means:  in your seat, ready to go - whether it's a meeting, work, or a dinner.

[TheMustardCardigan]

If I'm meeting up with someone somewhere other than their house, I try to be right on time. I end up early pretty frequently. It's just the way I'm wired. But if someone is having a get-together at their house, I don't come early unless they say I should-- some people like to have their close friends show up before their party starts.

 

Chronically late people are the bane of my existence but I have learned to deal with them over the years. Two of my friends in law school were always super late to things, so if I had plans with one of them I'd suggest meeting them at their house first and then leaving from there instead of meeting at a restaurant or whatever. That way, at least I wasn't sitting in my car in a parking lot for 20+ minutes waiting.

[LilMissMetaphor]

Others being late is probably the biggest peeve of my life.  So as you can imagine, I walk around annoyed a lot.