Is waiting a lost art?
When you are four years old it’s hard not to wriggle and squirm. It’s hard not to have your wishes instantly gratified. Learning to wait is accompanied by wailing, gnashing of teeth and the beating of one’s breast.
But in time a good many of us can curb our impulses. Like most of us, somewhere or other I learned to wait my turn. Well, most of the time.
I’d been to a Japanese restaurant in
I touched one on the arm, and motioned I wanted to get up. It was at that moment the seatbelt sign came on, and we were deafened with an announcement telling us to remain seated. The plane bounced. It dipped. It rolled. I felt I was being shaken and not stirred.
By this time, my bladder was not happy. I looked out of the window and saw we were near our destination. Time stood still. Were we going to be up there forever?
When at last we landed, I pushed past other passengers in the aisle and made it to the bathroom. A few people muttered unpleasantly but I felt I was on fire. I made it, but the lesson for me is not to mix green tea, bumpy flights, and loquacious women.
However, I am still honing my waiting skills. I am getting better. Are you?
When I was a teenager living in
Hitchhiking isn’t so popular these days. I think there are a lot of reasons. But I spent a long time standing by the side of the road in the middle of the night under some street lamp.
Although once I had my first car, my patience subsided. I was guilty of tooting my horn at drivers who sat at green lights. I was guilty of overtaking other vehicles when I thought they were going too slow. But even when driving my first car (Morris Minor 1000), I did notice how all the other cars would pass me by. I liked the slow lane.