My obsession: Beating the early bird

(A version of this story ran on May 31, 2016. I’ve made updates throughout the piece.)

The clock in my head was going off: beep, beep, beep. The blaring sound got louder with every passing moment. I was late and the alarm wouldn’t stop until I got to my destination, my local county courthouse.

I wasn’t technically late yet. I was still a few minutes early. However, I needed to find the nearest parking lot. I also had to locate the entrance to the courthouse. And, who knows how long that would take? I had received a jury summons several weeks earlier and needed to be at the courthouse by 8 a.m. 

I was in the vicinity, but I didn’t want to miss the lot. If I passed the entrance, I would have to drive around the busy city block again. In my mind, I could see the big bold letters on the summons: “Jurors failing to report could be held in contempt of court, taken into custody, and/or fined”

Tick, tick, tick

I tapped impatiently on my steering wheel waiting for the red light to turn colors. “It’s green, go already buddy,” I yelled to the car in front of me. If the guy was standing directly in front of me, I wouldn’t dare dream of saying anything to him. My parents brought me up better than that, but since he was in his car, and I was in mine, I had no problem blurting out for him to go. 

Finally the car in front of me moved and I drove half a block and turned into the parking garage. I quickly parked, grabbed the book I brought to keep me busy during the day, and walked-ran to the courthouse. It didn’t matter that the courthouse was a stone’s throw away, my brain was still on overdrive. I was fuming at myself: I was going to be late.

Brring, brring, brring

As soon as I stepped through the courthouse, I was greeted by a phalanx of security officers and a lengthy line to get through the metal detector. One officer saw the smirk on my face and explained that it was for everyone’s safety. I should’ve probably apologized and explained to him that my smirk wasn’t a commentary on the safety precautions. It was anger at myself for not counting on this delay.

One scan later and I was through the line and off to the elevator. When I got off on my floor, I was greeted by two clerks who took my information. A slew of people came in at the same time as me. We were all waited on and were calmly directed to another room to wait for jury registration to begin. 

I sat down in my seat at . . . let’s have a drumroll . . . at exactly 7:58 a.m. I wasn’t late. I wasn’t too early. I was right on-time. As I looked around and watched other jurors still entering the room, my internal alarm clock finally clicked off. 

Potential jurors kept coming in for the next forty minutes. As each late-comer walked in, I kept saying to myself that if I was in their shoes I would be going out of my mind. 

Five minutes early is still late

There’s no way around it: I’m an idiot when it comes to time. I hate to be late. It drives me crazy. It can be something important like a graduation or getting to the airport for a security check or even something trivial like a dentist appointment. I’ll go to great lengths to be on time. 

I have to be on time. And on time for me means being a few minutes before the expected start time. I wish I wasn’t built this way, but it’s just who I am. 

Now if the rest of the world just worked the same way, we’d be a much better world. At the very least, we’d be on time.

All images by Pexels.