a question of time

Some people are always late, according to my man me included, but some people are later than others and in their cases always actually means always. My best friend Therese, she's like that. She is never anywhere on time, even if it's right next door - Therese will be at least five to ten minutes late. Since I've known her for some time now, since first grade (21 years - shit that's a long time) to be exact, and she's a lot better at time management than she used to be. For example ones I waited for her for more than two hours at Nasjonalteateret (a subway station downtown Oslo). This was before mobile phones had entered into our lives, so after half an hour I called her house from a payphone expecting one of her parents to pick up telling me she had just left the house, but no: "I'm on my way, I promise. I just missed the bus, but I'll be on the next one. See you soon." Another half an hour passes and the bus arrives and still no sign of Therese. I go back to the payphone dial the number, this time expecting her to pick up, and sure enough: "I was just on my way now - I've got to hang up or I'll miss the bus. Bye!" So yet another half an hour slowly passes, standing there by myself, waiting, people watching, window shopping, gracing through magazines at the newsagent, looking too frequently at my watch (you know how it is, time passes über slow when you're waiting). The bus arrives and still no sign of Therese, at this point I remember getting very angry and I walk towards the payphone with angry steps probably cursing her in my head. Spending my last change I hear her mother's voice at the other end, relief: "She just left the house, she'll be on the next bus. You know what she's like. You've been waiting for almost two hours, gosh! Well she just left and she'll definitely be there in half an hour." 45 minutes pass and Therese appears leisurely strolling up from the subway. "I missed the bus and had to get the later one and jump on the subway at Røa instead."
The really annoying thing was that at the time we lived only 10-15 minutes walk from each other. Following this unfortunate event I always walked down to hers so at least I could sit around, talk, watch tv, whilst she got ready - i.e. put her face on. After this longest of all waits I learned a valuable lesson about Therese, never count on her being on time so tell her you'll be there at 5 and don't bother turning up until 5:30.
Now that we have grown up and have phones of our own I usually call her to see if she's even close to ready before I even think about putting my coat on. Which accidentally is the reason for this rant - today we were going to the gym together and I, thinking in Therese-terms, got there 15 minutes late after making sure half an hour before that she was actually going to be there on time, but when did she arrive - 30 minutes late. Unfortunately for her and ironic in this context the gym closed early because of the summer holidays, she only got a 25 minute workout.

The funny thing is that she is completely aware and concious of the fact that she's always late (she sees it as a flaw in her personality) and it therefore angers her that she has no right to be upset or disappointed when any of her friends are late. Because we all have our lateness, let's be honest. I know that since moving downtown (smack in the middle of the centre of Oslo) I am always about 5 minutes late. Sorry to all of you that have waited for me in the past. I can't promise it won't happen again, but I can say that I'll try to be on time in the future.