If there’s one thing I like better than punctuation, it’s punctuality.

The Councillor and I regularly have the following conversation:

Councillor: “What time does (event/movie/dinner) start?”

Me: “7.00pm”.

Councillor: “So we’ll leave just after 7?”

Me: “Umm, no, it starts at 7, so we’ll leave about 6.45pm.”

Councillor “Nah, it’ll be fine if we get there by 7.30pm”.

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD.

That’s what time is for, isn’t it? I mean, what is the purpose of time if it isn’t to provide a scheduling tool?

OK, I get that I may sound a little obsessive here. And I’ll admit that I probably take time and punctuality a little too seriously, but having said that, I can’t for the life of me figure out why it’s so hard for people to be on time.

The concept of time should, by rights, make it so easy. You’re given a time – you get there at that time.  Men, of course, tend to get around this (in my experience) by using broad, sweeping windows like “Sunday afternoon” (i.e. we’ve been invited to a barbeque at the McDougall’s place on Sunday afternoon.)

Honestly. Is it lunchtime, after lunch, mid-afternoon, late afternoon or early evening?! I need specifics, because obviously I’ll be the one getting everyone/everything ready on the day. A lunch barbeque is a very different event to an early evening barbeque so giving me “the afternoon” as a point of reference is about as useful as a back pocket on a shirt.

As a sidebar, can I just say that men do seem to appreciate the importance of time as it relates to oh, watching the Bledisloe Cup on the teev. I’m just saying.

Where was I? Right, punctuality.

I will never get how doctors can be late for the first appointment of the day.

I don’t understand how the Telstra guy can be late for an 8.00am-12.00pm timeslot.

And for the life of me I don’t get how people miss flights. How does that happen? Now, I’ll admit my upbringing has something to do with my commitment to getting to the airport with plenty of time to spare. OK, usually hours. It’s my Dad’s fault. My father spent the best part of his career on an aeroplane, and to this day insists on getting to the airport with so much time to spare he could build his own plane between checking in and boarding.

I so love the fact that there is a whole TV programme about (warning: gross generalisation coming up) dopey bogans who missed their flights because, I dunno, they were in the newsagent buying magazines and Pringles. Like everyone else, I also buy flight supplies at the airport, but I use the time I’ve built in to my airport planning. I should point out that I also build in time to have a wee, time to have a coffee, time to have another wee, and time to sit wasting time on Twitter.

So here’s the thing. If, as part of a journey somewhere, you know you will need to cross say, a drawbridge (I’m looking at you, Manly & Peninsula people), and that bridge closes every hour so it can be raised to allow boats through, and you know that that results in a monumental traffic build-up on both sides, how is that you wouldn’t factor this into your trip planning?

By “trip planning” I don’t mean printing out a map and directions from Google Maps for every trip to the supermarket (as much as that kind of time management puts me in a happy place). I just mean have a bit of a think about what time you need to be at your destination,work back from there, but incorporate something like “geez, I’d better add an extra 10 minutes for the bloody bridge”.  See? Easy.

So let’s do an exercise.

You need to attend the Anzac Day Assembly at 11.00am at your son’s school (because in a moment of weakness you agreed to go).

That means you’ll need to be at school by 10.45am.  Yes you will.  Because you will need time to find a parking space and walk to the hall. You are not Samantha from Bewitched. You can’t magic yourself from the car to the hall.

It generally takes 20 minutes to get to school. Don’t be fooled by this. “Generally” never applies when you have to be somewhere. Never ever. Not ever. You should add, in this example, 10 minutes to allow for traffic. If you don’t, some dickhead will break down in a turning lane. Deadset.

Right, because all parents were asked to bring a plate for the post-ceremony morning tea, you will need to stop at the bakery to pick up a hummingbird cake. I’d be allowing 15 minutes for this, which might seem like a lot, but it’ll be peak hour at the bakery with everyone on their way home from the gym, so running into someone and being caught on the chat is likely to be unavoidable.

And what do you know? By working backwards, it turns out that you need to leave home at 10.00am, not 10.40am.

It’s genius, really. It’s as close to a foolproof system as you can get.

Now, before anyone fires off comments claiming to have no control over their tardiness, or that it doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things (excuse me while I have an aneurism), or that sometimes it’s unavoidable, let me say that I do actually believe that there is the odd occasion when being late is understandable and even acceptable.  Obstetricians are the only holders of the “I’m late and that’s OK” card, because let’s face it, if your obstetrician is out delivering a baby, he can be as late as he likes. Unless he’s supposed to be delivering my baby.