Cnut Songs #15: The Fear of Making People Wait

I googled this to see if it was an actual phobia, and apparently it is, although all the literature (ha, like the internet contains “literature”!) seemed to be about arriving late for appointments, social events or parties. None of these things really causes me anxiety, yet making complete strangers wait is becoming a thing. I write this down here, as always, in the hope that it’ll help me process it. Don’t feel you have to read it.

Sam wanted me to show him how the ticket machine works in the Co-op car park. Normally he waits in the car while I go and get a parking ticket, but he’d built it up into the most exciting thing ever, so I let him come with me. However, I didn’t have any coins (still the quickest way to buy a ticket) and so had to use my card. Which takes ages as the machine has to contact the bank and perform the complicated security checks which allows it to take 40p from my account. Another example of technological progress slowing us down.

Anyway, as I began to show Sam the arcane magic of the ticket machine, someone else arrived behind us, waiting to get a ticket. And I suddenly became so flustered that I pressed the wrong button on the machine, meaning I’d have to start the whole procedure over again, thereby increasing the amount of time they’d have to wait… and I just couldn’t cope. I walked away, taking Sam with me, and waited till they’d got their ticket… by which time someone else had joined the queue and Sam was cringing that I was embarrassing him. Rightly so.

If I’m honest about it, I think I can trace my reaction back to the fact that I don’t like having to wait myself. There’s nothing worse than when you’re in the supermarket and you desperately want to buy a tin of beans, but there’s someone stood there reading the ingredients on the label, blocking your access to the beans, and making you wait while they read…

Beans (51%)

Tomatoes (34%)

Water

Sugar

Spirit Vinegar

Modified Corn Flour

Salt

Spice Extracts

Herb Extract

“Let me just check that one more time…”

Beans (51%)

Tomatoes (34%)

Water

Sugar…

Because I get so aggravated when this happens, I’ve developed an irrational fear of causing it to happen to anyone else. So if ever I’m looking at something in the supermarket and I can sense someone is waiting to get to the same thing, I will move out of the way. Not without a bit of grumbling, to be honest, which rather strips the gesture of any magnanimity. I realise this doesn’t paint me in the best light: at best, I’m an over-anxious freak, at worst: a petty misanthrope. At the root of it all is a serious problem with my self-esteem which is goes way, way back...

All of which brings me back to the car park, and Sam’s embarrassment. This is a side of his dad I don’t want him to know. He’s such a confident boy, I don’t want to be a role model for a supreme lack of confidence. I’ve got to work harder to hide that side of me, to present a more positive image when he’s with me, to learn to make people wait.

I'm pretty sure Tom Petty knew how I feel. Why else would he have written this...?