The Glare

This happened last week during my trivia hosting stint. As I set up my equipment for the weekly trivia contest, a young couple arrived. They ordered food from a server, and picked up one of the trivia scoring booklets for the game.

This was at ten minutes to 6:00. A little early, but I can work with it.

I’m still setting everything up. HDMI cable to the large television, so the questions can appear on the big screen for everyone to see. Plug the microphone into the Peavey Messenger M100 mixing board. Plug in the two speakers. Check the levels. Test one, test two, test one two three…

Ten minutes later, the young woman walked up to my table.

“Are we the only ones playing trivia tonight?” she asked.

“No,” I replied, “There will be more teams arriving in a few minutes. We’re still about 30 minutes away from the first question.”

The woman looked at me as if I had just revealed a plot twist in an M. Night Shyamalan movie. “What time does trivia start?”

“First question will be at 6:30.”

And then I saw it. The glare. She looked back to where she and her guy were dining.

I knew that glare.

That was the glare of “you lied to me about what time we need to be here.”

At that point in time, I just went back to my equipment. But for the rest of the night – through the entire trivia game – I could see some serious discomfort between that couple.

Yep. That was the glare.

You know the one. The one where you’re told an event starts at noon, even though it starts at 1:00, with the assumption that your partner takes forever and you have to adjust the time to compensate.

And while that’s happening, your partner figures out that you’re compensating, and takes longer to get ready because they’re thinking, “Oh, it really starts at such-and-such a time.”

It’s the same theory with movies at the local multiplex. You think the movie starts at 7:00 just because that’s the advertised time? Silly you. After all the commercials and coming attractions and messages to silence your cell phones, you’re lucky if the opening scene starts by 7:20.

Or how about a concert? You think that the act you paid $120 to Ticketmaster for will start the show exactly at 8:00 p.m.? Maybe … after the opening act does their set, and the warmup act before the opening act does their set … you might see the headliner at oh, say, 9:30 for the first song.

But you go with it. You understand this is a requirement for life. Time is but an abstraction.

Your doctor’s appointment is at 2:30. But you’re sitting in the doctor’s office until, what, 2:45 at the earliest, and just as you reach for your cell phone to distract you, the doctor opens the examination room and it’s time for your physical. Turn your head and cough, buddy.

But we understand all this. No one wants to be late. There are things in life where punctuality is a virtue. The plane won’t wait for you. The boat sets sail when it sets sail. You miss it, you’re out of luck, buck.

Me? I’m of the view that if something has a specific start time, I’m there a few minutes early. This allows for any sort of uncontrolled delay – a traffic jam, a flat tire, anything. Because as far as I’m concerned, if I tell someone I will meet them at noon, I will hold up my end of the contract and be there at noon. And if they arrive at noon as well, that’s a bonus and we’re on our way. And if they’re a few minutes late, no big worries. And if they’re a few minutes early, that’s fine too.

But I’m sure that couple will have a lot of future discussions about schedules and appointments and other such events. She’ll be, “Oh, he really means 6, but it starts at 7, I can tell,” while he’s “Oh, it starts at 6, but I’ll say it starts at 5 so we can get there by 7.”

It doesn’t have to be this complicated. Just work together on your timing, and all will blend together. And no one will ever be suspicious between announced time and real time.

Nobody has time for that.