Guide

The blogosphere abounds with guides.  Guides to running a marathon, planning dinner, picking a doctor, and making scarves out of old t-shirts.  It seems like this blog ought to have a guide.  But what about?  After all, if I’m going to write a guide, it has to be about something I have mastered.  A practice in which I am an expert.  So, after much careful deliberation, here you have it.

The Bainster Adventure Guide to Being Late

• ·         Practice, practice.  Practice makes perfect.  You can’t perfect being late unless you’ve done it lots of times.
• ·         Overschedule.  This is key.  If you have too many things to do, you’re guaranteed to be late!  Very little effort is required on your part.
• ·         Believe what you see on paper.  When you’re making out your schedule, be sure that you have complete faith in what is written down.  If you allot 30 minutes for the grocery store, there’s no way it’ll take 45!  Remember, if it works on paper, it works in real life, every time.
• ·         Believe you can make up for lost time.  Don’t let the fact that the first two stops took longer than you planned make you think that you can’t make it up at the third.  You can always make up for lost time.     
• ·         Be an optimist.  There will be no red lights, no slow tractors, no two year old fits, no missing shoes.  Everything will go along as planned.
• ·         Believe you are invincible.  If you’ve decided you want to do it, you can do it!  Go ahead!  Nothing will stand in your way.  Only mortals are limited by time.
• ·         Speed.  There’s nothing like getting stopped by your friendly neighborhood policeman to prevent punctuality.
• ·         Expect perfection.  Refuse to leave until everything is perfect: kids, hair, house.  That can make you late every time.
• ·         Screens.  Surround yourself with devices with screens: phones, computers, tablets, TVs.  Distraction is a very important element in being late. 

And, when all else fails, and you are still, despite your very best efforts, finding yourself arriving on time, then just have kids.  They’ll make you late every time.