Timing is Everything

CMD, Jim Burns... Let me check... Your order is due to arrive on-site in the next ten minutes... You're welcome... Yeah, no problem."

I am Jim Burns, and I work for Construction Materials Delivery as the materials handler. My job is to ensure that customer orders for construction materials get delivered to job sites on time. Deliver early, we may not be able to unload our trucks. Deliver late, we are responsible for causing work delays for our customers. Timing is critical in our business, and I am an expert in managing time. To me, timing is everything.

Twenty minutes ago, my wife called to ask when I would get home tonight. I told her I would be home at 6:30.

"Make sure you are because I need to talk to you about something important," Kathy said.

"I'll be there." I didn't ask her what she needed to talk to me about because I already had a pretty good idea.

Kathy works at the local community college administrative office, where we met eight years ago when I was a student there. We have been married for seven years, and they have been good years.

Occasionally, Kathy comes home from work and wants to talk about an idea she got from one of her coworkers. These ideas run the scale from great to pure BS. Since Kathy isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer, I have to help her determine the difference. That is what I will be doing tonight.

I confirmed the completion of our last on-time delivery of the day. I spent the next hour and a half scheduling tomorrow's deliveries. Then, I called Antonio's restaurant and made a reservation for 7:30. I left the warehouse office at six o'clock for the half-hour drive home.

I was about a mile from home when I stopped at my favorite sports bar to have a beer and chat with the bartender. Twenty minutes later, I walked into my house.

Kathy met me in the kitchen in a little black dress and heels. She would have looked hot if it weren't for the angry expression on her face. "You said you would be home at 6:30 so we could talk."

Like I said earlier, 'timing is everything.' I arrived at 6:50, the precise time I wanted to arrive.

"Oh good, you're ready to go. We have a 7:30 reservation at Antonio's."

"You never said anything about going out to dinner tonight."

"You said you had something to discuss. I figured we could talk while eating."

"But I have plans for tonight."

"We can discuss your plans at dinner."

"If you were here on time, I could have explained this to you. I don't enough have time now. I have to leave in a few minutes."

"It's your choice. You go to dinner with me, and we will discuss the damage you have done to our marriage. Or, you can stick with your plan to go out with Darren Clark, and we can move straight on to divorce. I am heading out now, so if you want any chance to save this marriage, be in the car when I leave. If you aren't there, the only discussion about our marriage will be between our lawyers."

I was getting into my car when Darren pulled up in front of our house. I started the engine and was about to shift into reverse when Kathy got in.

"Can I have a minute to tell Darren why I can't go out with him?"

"No! You should never have agreed to go out with him. You're not his wife; you're mine, and you should have explained that to him. If he doesn't understand that, I will gladly explain it to him in a way he is sure to understand."

"Kathy said. "He said he just wanted to take me to dinner, nothing else."

"Bull shit. I was told that Darren was bragging to his friends about how he was going to get you up to his apartment, and in his words, "Fuck her brains out.'"

Kathy started crying and said, "Darren said that? I never... it was just supposed to be dinner."

"And you believed him? We are in a lot more trouble than I thought."

"I am sorry. I feel so stupid now. What can I do? How do we fix this?"

"This is a problem of your own creation, so it is yours to fix. As for me, I am looking forward to Antonio's lasagna.