Time may be on your side when you least expect it

Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in.

- Henry David Thoreau

I sat for 15 minutes in a doughnut shop drive-through line behind a woman who appeared to spend most of her time leaning out her car window yelling into the speaker box.

She was giving a morning breakfast order more complicated than Japanese geometry and apparently worked in an office - unlike my own - where everyone has different expectations of coffee. Their tastes in pastries are likewise as diverse as a Rainbow Coalition picnic.

All the while, I sat and fumed and wondered why every time I get in a hurry, I get behind someone who isn't.

I try to be philosophical. I realize that many unpleasant experiences are "learning" experiences.

But so many of them are not.

Nothing productive. Nothing constructive. Nothing healthy.

They are nothing but wastes of time.

I once sat for an hour in a work-related meeting room before realizing at the end they were talking about insurance for which I was ineligible.

My brother had it worse. When he went off to college, he promised Mama he would go to church every Sunday morning.

Well, somewhere during his first year, he overslept, awoke with alarm and began to hurry toward his usual place of worship.

Realizing he wasn't going to make it, he whipped his Monte Carlo into the parking lot of a large Baptist church he had often passed on the way.

A promise is a promise, he said.

The place was packed and it looked like every spot was taken, but they made him a seat on the front row. He said the ushers at the door greeted him seriously and led him down the aisle. "Why the crowd?" he kept thinking.

An exceptional guest preacher? A wonderful music program? Insider knowledge on some heavenly event?

Well, no, it seems.

The church was apparently split down the middle on whether to keep its pastor.

Every vote was needed. Every voice wanted to be heard.

And my brother said he spent a considerable part of his Sunday listening to speaker after speaker discuss the pros and cons of the preacher's performance.

"Why didn't you leave?" I asked him later.

"Didn't want to offend anyone," he said. "I kept thinking if I made a show of getting up and leaving in front of the whole room, someone might think I was offended with what a speaker said, that I had walked out.

"I was afraid that might sway the vote one way or the other."

"So, how did you vote?" I asked him.

"Oh, I wanted him to stay," he said. "I figured the people trying to get rid of him were the ones keeping me there."

Proving, I guess, sometimes time is on your side.

Reach Bill Kirby at (706) 823-3344 or bill.kirby@augustachronicle.com.