So I arrived on time. But I waited and waited until Bush. We set a time and he was still hesitant to arrive.
The main thing is that when we scheduled the meeting, he begged me to be on time because he was in a hurry to finish the meeting. I wasn't offended by the fact that before he started the meeting, he was already in a hurry to finish it.
I glanced at my mobile watch, meaning my 'smartphone'. I saw that the time hadn't moved. We had set it for five, and indeed, the hour hand on the mobile watch was still at five, only the minutes had advanced a little. They showed that five minutes had already passed, and it was five minutes past five.
I whispered to myself, as I usually do in such cases, "Oh, come on (in Yiddish, of course), five minutes late - that's not late.".
On the other hand, I thought to myself, because it's all a matter of attitude. If our meeting is only for a minute, then five minutes is a very significant delay. Five times the meeting. But I decided that it's not worth focusing on the details, and five minutes is five minutes, without a question of attitude.
•
While calculating and thinking, I looked at the clock again, and now the hour hand did not change again, only the minute hand moved lazily forward, showing that it was five minutes past seven, and as always in moments of idle waiting (one step after filtering for myself), I ask myself the question that has never been asked:
Why is it that when someone is asked what time it is, they answer, "It's five past five" without needing to mention the minutes, while when it's five minutes past seven, someone will answer, "It's five minutes past seven" - and suddenly there's a need to mention the minutes.
And while I was pondering what the answer would be, another question was added: What is the gender of the minute? Because if the minute is masculine, you should say five and five, and if the minute is feminine, you should say five and five.
And while rubbing my hands in a skeptical, thought-provoking manner, I glanced at the clock for the third time, and saw that it was already five minutes past nine, meaning one minute before five ten. Meaning in a minute - I would be ten minutes late.
And as before, I noticed that at ten past five, minutes are not mentioned, while at nine past five, minutes are mentioned. By the time I remembered, another minute had already passed.
How do I know? Because I looked at the clock for the fourth time.
Therefore, a quick calculation shows that on average I look at the clock every two and a half minutes. But since I don't have the strength to keep track of the seconds, I prefer to say that in ten minutes I look at the clock four times.
•
Since I was saying goodbye, and I didn't want to be mad at my friend with whom I had scheduled the meeting, I decided that being ten minutes late didn't count as being 'late', because I could be ten minutes late too. Not that it's ever happened to me, but if it did happen - it wouldn't be too bad at all.
By the time I decided it wasn't that late, and until I managed to remember that it had never really happened to me, I glanced at the clock for the fifth time, although I should note that this was the first time in the second decade of five o'clock.
I saw that the time was currently twelve minutes past five. I thought about the fact that the matter of minutes is mentioned here too.
But until I remembered that for the average I need to look at the seconds, I missed the second, literally the second.
Due to these circumstances, I thought to myself that I should look and see what time it was the previous second, and then I would know exactly when I looked at the clock. But I missed that second by a second too. It turns out that I missed the first second by two seconds.
So it turns out that it's now five-thirteen, and by this time I've already looked at the clock three times in the second decade of five, and so the average of looking at the clock has changed.
Now I'm debating whether I should look at the clock again or not.
The broader question is: Is it worth it not to destroy the average of the first decade in the second decade, or is it not worth it? And like everything in life, it's all a matter of feasibility.
•
Suddenly I realized that I was here because I had an appointment, and the person I was waiting for was late. And I had to look at the clock to see how late he was. I looked at the clock and saw that it was already a quarter past five. I realized that the hour had stopped being divided into minutes, but was beginning to be divided into quarters, and with this conclusion I finished the first quarter of five.
So I have a new average.
I said to myself a little sullenly, because after all, being fifteen minutes late is already starting to be considered a significant delay, but since it's only starting to be significant, it was a little sullenly, not a lot sullenly.
What I did not want to do was sulk because I still had a lot of thoughts left in my brain, and then suddenly from afar the quick, apologetic figure of my friend appeared to me, as only others know, and the figure waved its hands in greeting, and approached me with lightning speed.
But when the figure crossed the road, I realized that I had misidentified it, and that the figure was not the figure of the friend with whom I had arranged to meet.
•
I debated whether I should call him, since my mobile watch has a phone function. This debate didn't take long and I immediately picked up the device, but as I pressed the device to call, I saw the display of the watch called a smartphone, the time, and it showed five-thirteen.
So it turns out that I've been waiting for eighteen minutes.
And I, still continue to wait and wait. There is no doubt that the delay is starting to become excessive, and now with such a long delay I forgot the reason why I was looking at the smartphone called a portable watch, and I started to think that the difference between tolerable delay and excessive delay is eight minutes, while the difference between forgivable delay and a delay that is starting to become unforgivable is only three minutes.
Then I remembered that I wanted to call my late friend. I turned the phone back on and it was already five twenty, and here questions began to attack me one after another.
New questions that hadn't occurred to me before.
•
The first question was, why don't we say it's five-thirty, just like we say it's a quarter past five, when it's fifteen minutes past five?
Another question that suddenly arose was why, when we reach the third decade of an hour, we don't mention the matter of minutes at all, until the end of the hour.
Additionally, I was bothered by the fact of how to calculate the times I looked at the clock in the second decade of the fifth hour.
Because most of the times I looked, it wasn't on purpose to know the time, but at first it was to catch the second that was missed, and then it was when I wanted to call, and then the time peeked at me. But then I remembered that I wanted to call and didn't call.
I looked again atI looked at the device and saw that the time was five twenty-three.
And now I look at the time, I hear an authoritative voice and no apologies, in addition to the slap on the back called a blow, and I realized that my friend had arrived.
From the intensity of the pain, and also from the joy that it had arrived, all my questions were forgotten, at least until the next wait.
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