Waiting is not my thing at all, especially if there’s any uncertainty involved. If I know exactly what I’m waiting for, and exactly how long it will take, I can be the soul of patience. But waiting and waiting and nothing happening? It’s the worst kind of torture I can ever put myself through.

When I took my car in to the Saturn dealer this morning, I asked Sadie at the desk if I could get a ride back to my house. It was a major service, and they had the starter problem to deal with, so I knew it would take too long for me to wait in their lounge, as I usually do. I didn’t even take a book, but I should have, because an hour after Sadie told me it would be fifteen minutes until the shuttle driver got back and could take me home, I had to remind her I was there.

At first I sat and read the newspaper, while the three women who were also waiting talked. I joined in the conversation once, when none of them could think of the name of Cher’s daughter, and I happened to know it was Chastity.

I also knew that Chastity’s father was Sonny Bono, not That Blond Guy With the Long Hair, which is what the woman who likes the Millionaire show (because she learns so much from it) thought. I also knew the name of That Blond Guy, but I didn’t volunteer it. I went back to my paper.

People started coming and going, and I started pacing. It seems that I spent most of my day pacing. At least, that’s how it feels, and since pacing isn’t one of the items on my to-do list, it doesn’t give me much satisfaction. Not the best way to spend my time, even though it was the closest thing to power walking that I’ve done all year.

When I got tired of pacing, I walked out to the reception desk, and Sadie gasped. She said she thought I had already left, but I’m sure she just forgot about me. It wasn’t the first time that’s happened, and it won’t be the last, but I didn’t tell her that. She phoned her driver, and then told me he was three minutes away. I sat in the chair next to her desk to wait this time. She wasn’t going to forget me again.

So almost two hours after I left home, I got back and tried to get some work done. But really, I was waiting again, waiting for the call that would tell me my car was ready and all my problems were over. Sadie finally called at 3:30 pm, and she again told me that the driver would be back from a run in fifteen minutes. At 4:30, I called her, and she apologized. He had “just left” for my house, and she was sorry he had forgotten to let me know he was on his way.

I nearly decided to call again, twenty minutes later. Even in the worst traffic, it should take no more than ten minutes to drive from the dealership to my house. I can do it in five, but I didn’t expect the shuttle driver, who is over 70 and was celebrating his birthday today (and was hoping to get off early, he had told me earlier in the day), to hit the speeds I normally do on my own road. I just kept waiting. And waiting.

It was almost 5:30 pm by the time I was home for good. Because it had taken so long, I never made it to the post office, so I don’t know if the big check I was expecting got here or not. I didn’t feel up to making another trip out, because I was exhausted from all that pacing. There’s no way I can concentrate well enough to get much work done when I’m waiting and waiting and I don’t know what’s going to happen next. This was pretty much a wasted day, except for all the extra exercise I got.