what if you said a version of that to your family? What then?

Oh, ha, no. Best case, everyone would blame someone else, two people would cry, and one person would dramatically down the rest of her drink, tell us all to fuck off, and speed away dramatically in her sports car. To fix the dysfunction, they'd have to stop being dysfunctional.

Not that I'm the poster child for emotional health myself, you know, and not that they're bad people; they're all generous and kind and funny when they're not being nutjobs.

I'm so glad I'm not the only one who has to deal with dilly-dallying family members.

I am the dilly-dallying member of the family. Well, my mom is worse. But it just seems to happen.

I routinely lie to Tim if we have a time that can't budge (like a friend's birthday shindig at the go-kart place, where she had it reserved for a specific time block -- WAY different than going to Tim's family for a holiday dinner). That way when we are inevitably running "late," he asks why I'm not freaking out, and then I confess that I told him a fake time.

We're routinely late for "regular" things (dinners, movies, whatnot), because Tim is a time agnostic. Sometimes I drive separately to things, and other times I just grit my teeth and deal.

For YEARS we had to tell my grandmother that family things had a start time of an hour earlier than they really were (and she would still be at least 45 minutes late).

I did that for my graduation dinner, made the res for nine but told everyone 8:30. We made it on time, just.

My mom used to be bad about that (she believed if a wedding invitation said "ceremony at 5:00," it was totally fine to be pulling into the church parking lot at 5:05. Got to love walking in *after* the bride.

I think my extremely anal stepdad cured her of that.

I used to be really bad about time slipping away unnoticed. I was always either late or rushing frantically to be sort-of on time. Now I often arrive fifteen minutes early because I overcompensate. But that comes with fretting for HOURS before leaving about making sure I don't flake out and forget what time it is.

I'm not adopted, is what I'm saying.

It was a really hard adjustment for my folks moving from Manhattan to Milwaukee. In NY, you would invite people for 7 and be reasonably sure no one would arrive before 7:45. The first time my parents had a dinner party in Milwaukee they said 7, and when the first guest showed up a 6:50 my mom was in her bathrobe about to get in the shower.

What time are we leaving, Mom?

Oh, not too early.

OK. Good. What time.

Well, we don't have to be there until four... so just whenever you wake up come over.

We need to be there at four. How long is the drive?

Oh, I think two hours, two and a half.

OK. Let's leave your house by 1:00

Oh, I don't think we'll need THAT much time...

Let's leave by one in case we get held up. [Note: we will]

(With any luck we won't walk in after the bride)