As it turns out, and as has recently happened to my wife, if you are late by 7 minutes to the doctor, they will turn you away…and charge you for the appointment. Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on! Settle down, I can’t hear myself think! gavel bang Let’s here them out. Maybe there’s a good reason for this policy.

Apparently, many childless individuals got together and decided that waiting in line at Starbucks was more important than showing up to a doctors appointment on time. There was no such thing as “I didn’t get coffee this morning.” Maybe this is all changing with the 5 hour energy revolution, but it has yet to make it’s way into the waiting room of the doctors office. And so there was an ever increasing tardiness to the doctors office, causing many doctors to have to work harder in a shorter window of time, and maybe even stay late! Unheard of!

The way it’s supposed to work when we go to the doctor’s office is we sit, and we wait. We wait until the doctor is ready for us. If these poles shift, and the doctor is waiting for us to be ready, the effects will be calamitous. Something like the earth will open up or lightning will rain down like…uh…rain or something. It’s just not good. But here’s a little history lesson for you. We parents were given a helping hand!

Not long ago, the government of the United States of America did something wonderful. I’m not sure if it was during Clinton’s time in office, or maybe Bush, or Obama… so relax. You are all wrong. It is Proposition I.M.LWAA.L8. It passed with flying colors, and I imagine you voted for it if you are reading a blog about a parent. Why on earth would you read a parent blog if you don’t have kids?! Are you really that interested in cutting sandwiches to look like animals or how to spruce up Christmas for the kids? Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, Prop I.M. LWAA.L8, which jokingly became referred to as Proposition I’m Always Late (not sure why). After it passed, every parent was issued a government ID that declared the ages and number of children in the household. Having this card handy made it illegal for a person to be turned away for any appointment based on a tardiness scale. Let’s look at that scale, shall we:

graph (1)

Clearly, based on this chart, with two children (3 and 7), Gayle should have been considered on time, easily! She was practically early! She didn’t have the badge; just a bunch of “heard it all befores” like “I’m a working mom and I struggled to get out of the house because I know how important it is to be on time and I didn’t want to pull the car over to call because that would have made me even more late and I’m out of breath because I literally ran all the way here from my car…(BIG INHALE)” If only she had her government issued card. If only.

I have repeatedly, but unsuccessfully (a lot of disconnected calls and endless bure..e.a.u..cratic stuff, YOU know), called into the local governments office to see about replacement ID cards. If anything, it would be nice -on those ‘gonna be tardy to a friend’s house’ days – to wear a badge so that when those latte sucking, single, no childrenites act overly excited to see you and laugh/grunt things like, “We thought you were dead!” or “I guess we can call off the search party!” or “we ate already and are going to bed now.” we can flash it and say, “I’m always late. It’s ok. I’m a parent.”

Someone once told me, or maybe I saw it on Ellen, that you should account for the things that might make you late. This person, or maybe it was Ellen, probably does not have children. You can account for traffic and leave early. That is true. You cannot account for a child. You most certainly cannot account for multiple children. They are God’s way of saying, “Nothing you do will ever be more important than a shoelace knot.”