thief of time

I hate my time being wasted.

What I hate even more is my time being wasted when I'm ill, in pain or otherwise having a crappy day, a day like Tuesday, when my stomach felt like Tyson was punching it repeatedly.

(I know you can see where this is going...)

I made plans to see a friend on Tuesday night for drinks. I use the term friend loosely, since the friendship is a new thing. We were together on and off for a year and a half and then didn't talk for over a year. Now we have been trial running friendship for 6 months. *backstory over*

The plan was that I would drive up to Rainham (a pretty significant distance from my house), pick him up and we'd go out for drinks (non-alcoholic for me obviously - don't drink and drive!). I spoke to him at 6pm and told him that I was about to drop something off at my girl's house and I'd be at his for 8.30pm.

"That's cool"

My girl Nadia had just come back from NYC and I had her birthday present from a week before she left (delayed - I know), so we talked, caught jokes and ate sweet popcorn which she must have missed while being in the States since they prefer to drench popcorn in fat and destroy their arteries rather than drench it in sugar and ruin those perfect teeth!

Anyway I digress, before I left Nadia's I called my friend and he didn't pick up, so I texted to let him know that I was on my way.

So why is it that 10minutes later I pulled up outside his house and his car wasn't in the drive? I called again, because being a friend, he wouldn't go far when he knew I was coming over, right?

Right?

WRONG

After 15 minutes of hanging around I finally heard from him,

He was in north london and wasn't going to be back for at least an hour

WTF?

"Are you going to wait for me?"

WTF?

I really hope he was joking, because after repressing some choice expletives I hung up and drove home. A warning to all - driving home angry, is just as distracting as driving tired, or maybe even drunk, and isn't recommended.

I still don't really know exactly what happened, I was a little too heated to discuss it at the time and I haven't heard from him since (I rarely get angry, but apparently can inspire fear when I do - a useful skill). I mean was there some kind of miscommunication? Was there an emergency in North London? And as much as I would like one of these reasons to apply I know they don't. If you know that you are due to meet someone at a particular time, any changes that will affect those plans warrant a text message to warn the other party. It's common courtesy, it wasn't extended to me on Tuesday, and it serves as a reminder for why the ex is an ex.