Tardiness is socialism

This is it for the Romanian delegate.. He did not come to America to be delayed by communist carpool rules that demand that the timeliness of the group be sacrificed in waiting for the slowest of them to arrive. In his individualist America, it is every man for himself in the quest to arrive at work at precisely 8:00 in the morning.

This email went out on Thursday, 7/22:


Carpool members,

To pick Libyan, Caucasian and bTexas delegates up, in the morning, I have to be awake and leave my home with 15 to 20 minutes earlier. In addition to that, I have to stop, wait ( sometimes too long ), and start the engine one to four times, which increases my gas consumption, and sometimes my blood pressure, overall.
Libya, Caucasia, bTexas, no offense, but I realize that I need those 15 to 20 minutes ( willingly donated to you so far, for such a long time ) in the morning just for me.
So, staring tomorrow, I will not by picking you up anymore. I will not be parking my car in front of Libya's, or Caucasia's house when is their turn to drive, without blocking the driveway, mail delivery, or trash collection.
Will be educational and much better for all of us, to know that whoever is scheduled to drive, must leave Chain Restaurant for Truckers and the Elderly place at 7:30AM sharp, with or without scheduled passengers. This way we will avoid explanatory phone calls, and the possibility to be late. Is all about respect for us, and for our job.
It will not be necessary for you, as scheduler, to track all those miles adding more data to an already over-complicated equation. We all have to be grateful for your work, and make it as easier as possible with everyone's contribution.
I am sure everybody can be responsible for it's own time!
That being said, starting tomorrow, I'll meet you all at Chain Restaurant for Truckers and the Elderly prior to 7:30AM. I don't know about you, but I will be gone if the scheduled driver is not there at least two minutes prior to 7:30AM.

Thanks for your understanding.

Romanian Delegate


To be honest, a central meeting place makes more sense, even if half the UNC members are coming from the same neighborhood. It makes the carpool matrix significantly less complicated, and certain members are less than dependable. This was all agreed upon in the UNC when all members were present the next afternoon. Watches were even synchronized, in good humor, to make sure that no one missed the 2 minute window, and all went home for the weekend.


On Monday morning, sure enough, the Romanian and Libyan delegates were early to the Chain Restaurant for Truckers and the Elderly, and were shortly joined by the Vietnamese and PRL delegates. However, at 7:27 am, bTexas, the designated driver, had not shown up. As the fateful minute ticked by, the Romanian delegate readied himself for his exodus. The UNC had not discussed how to coordinate the driving if the original driver failed to appear on schedule, but this did not deter him. As his watch struck 7:28, he started up the Buick and drove off. In a feat of Lifetime made-for-TV-movie timing, he turned onto the highway just as bTexas’ minivan pulled into the parking lot. Obviously, our watches need to be synchronized to the second, not just the minute.

bTexas was not amused at this turn of events, and was committed to catching the Romanian delegate somewhere in the intervening 25 miles. After his third pass on the shoulder of a slow-moving semi truck, the PRL delegate closed her eyes and forced herself to sleep, so that her imminent death would remain a surprise until the last possible moment.

Unfortunately, the Romanian and bTexas delegates reside in another building, so the inevitable cold war went undocumented.

Tardiness will not be tolerated.

The Romanian delegate has had enough. He is not content to sit and wait, becoming increasingly late for work, as the Caucasia-NCA delegate, and then bTexas take their sweet ass time getting to the proscribed meeting points. Today, he mutinied. When his (American-made) watch ticked past the time to leave, he left, passenger seats empty. First, he left the Caucasia-NCA delegate at his house, then bTexas at the Frozen Dairy Treat Franchise that is his designated meeting spot. The Romanian’s cell phone had died, so he couldn’t call to tell them he was leaving them, but no matter. They were late, and they had it coming.
When he arrived at the Restaurant for Truck Drivers and the Elderly that is the meeting place for the PRL and Vietnamese delegates, on time for the first time in months, he requested a phone call be made to the errant delegates. “We are waiting for the Romanian!” they claimed. “He is here!” the PRL delegate explained, “You were late!” If you have ever seen a cartoon where the character holds the phone away from their head, while various symbols that substitute for expletives stream out of the earpiece, then you have an idea of how bTexas reacted to this revelation.
Despite the Romanian’s protestations, the decision to wait for those slowpoke delegates was made, in the spirit of equanimity. Additionally, this allowed the Romanian delegate to harangue bTexas and Caucasia-NCA for several minutes on their rampant tardiness. Watches were synchronized, and the PRL delegate fell asleep in the back of the minivan, safe from the disgruntled glares of offended delegates on both sides of the issue.


As the minivan departed, carrying bTexas and the Romanian delegate to their end of the plant, the other 3 delegates stood in the mist and watched as it receded towards the nitrogen tank. “Oh crap,” muttered the Vietnamese delegate, “I forgot my drink in the cupholder.” Now his drink this afternoon will be 2 ounces of hot, watered down soda.

Obviously he knows something we don't

The Romanian delegate seems, by all rights, a reasonably intelligent person. He is an engineer, with a Master’s degree. It can’t always be said that engineers, particularly those with higher degrees, are completely sane, but it’s pretty much a given that they are smart. Maybe it has something to do with growing up in a communist country, where critical thinking is not highly prized, especially under a dictator like Nicolae Ceauşescu. It’s hard to tell. What is evident, however, is that the Romanian delegate seems to believe just about anything that anyone tells him (for instance, parsley).

He mentioned the other day something called “biorhythms,” which he said he uses to predict his energy level and general health on a daily basis. Thinking that this was something that would interest the local envoy, he sent a link, so she could see for herself the wonders of biorhythms. This link was dutifully forwarded to the PRL Delegate, who has no natural rhythm, and thus will take all the biorhythm she can get.

Using your birth date as the only data input, an obscure and undoubtedly devilishly complicated program produces a lovely set of color-coded sine waves, from which you apparently can determine whether or not it is safe to go to work (“If your waves, they are very high or very low, you should stay at home, in the bed, because you could have heart attack or stroke”). The PRL delegate was surprised to learn that while she felt rather average (if a bit tired) today, her sine waves were all peaking, and as such she should be “manic” and confined to bed, lest she give herself an aneurism if she so much as sneezed.

This was a distressing find, as this delegate had already committed to a strenuous interval of aerobic exercise during the lunch break, and to back out would have caused her to look like a pansy-pants. Frantically, she consulted the site’s other magical calculators, and was given a list of words that might be used to describe her day.

(if your parsley breakfast didn't give you super-vision, clicky for a large version)

Drama! Hell! Sacrifice! Exhaustion! Slaughter! Syzygy! Even the words were against her today!

What about the runes? Maybe the runes could give her some good news!

(Again with the clicking)

Oh no! Was she throwing her life away on a game of chance with her cerebral artery? Did the rune indicate her loss of consciousness from brain trauma if she worked out, or her loss of self-esteem from being a pansy-pants who skipped out on it? Why couldn’t the stars, or whatever it is that controls the mystical website, give her a straight answer? This was a matter of life or death or floral trousers!

Maybe in her panic, she missed something in the list of words! Frantically, she scrutinized the nouns for another insight into her plight, and like a bolt of wisdom from the mysterious website deities, she finally understood. Her world was suffused with calm and enlightenment. The walls buzzed with the harmonic vibration of understanding. Then the industrial equipment just outside her office turned off, and the shaking stopped.

Mercenary Oyster Stallion.

Obviously everything was going to be okay.