"That's two hours of your life you won't get back." I think if I were ever interviewed in one of those 5 minutes, quickie interviews and I was asked what phrase I use too often this is what I'd reply. I use it when I've managed to persuade friends or family to sit through one of my am-dram performances. I use it when I've just sat through Newcastle United succumbing to another humiliating defeat. I use it when I’ve had to teach a particularly boring topic and I know some of the pupils are losing the will to live – I know teachers are supposed to make everything new and exciting and fill their pupils with zeal and enthusiasm for everything they teach. But realistically there are topics out there that we can’t enthuse ourselves about, and if we’re not excited how are we expected to excite others? Of course we do our best but sometimes, just sometimes, we fail to fill our pupils with the fever that we normally do – I use it because I feel bad that I have either persuaded someone else, or persuaded myself to waste a chunk of their life doing something when they would really have been a lot happier and feel more constructive doing something less boring instead.
A lot of our allotted time in this life is seen as wasted. You’ll find no end of statistics online showing that we spend two weeks kissing, four years doing housework, twenty-four years sleeping, six months sitting on the toilet… I could go on but I only have so long to spend on the internet – I need to catch up on my nine months spent in traffic jams.
Last night, as I was about to fall asleep, I heard a new statistic. Apparently British men spend, on average, a year of their lives waiting for their wives and girlfriends. This time, apparently, includes twenty-two weeks waiting outside the changing rooms while their partner tries on clothes. Apparently six out of ten men say it drives them mad that they spend over a week waiting in their car to pick up their girlfriend, who is currently spending that week walking around telling everyone individually that they “must catch up again soon.” One of those six men will, it appears, leave their partner for this very reason. How appropriate it is that they begin married life by keeping the groom waiting at the altar while they take an extra drive round the block.
I got to thinking about how I don’t currently have anyone to wait on. I started to wonder what I should be spending that year doing. I could learn a new language, finish the screenplay I started in 2002, watch the complete back catalogue of Scrubs… the world is my oyster.
Then the bad part happened. I started to think of all the times I’d kept people waiting. Including the plays, the (incredibly few) boring lessons, and the football matches, I have wasted an awful lot of people’s time. On top of that I have a habit of being late. I generally turn up twenty minutes later than I had previously arranged. I like to think that people who know me take this into account when they make the arrangement and spend the extra twenty minutes constructively; but what if they don’t?
So I apologise. To everyone I’ve kept waiting, I’m sorry for the valuable years of your life you spent at Train Stations, Airports, Coffee Shops; I’m sorry for all the plays you sat through for my five minute cameos; I’m sorry I forced you to sit through James Cameron films just so I could talk about how bad they were; I’m sorry I made you read through this blog to the very end. That’s five minutes of your life you won’t get back.
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