The king of punctuality

Five years ago, Jim Dunbar managed to get doctors to classify his condition: “late arrival”. His tardiness, then, is not a lack of courtesy. It is a disorder, the inability of your brain, affected by a hyperactive attention deficit disorder, to properly calculate time.

Johnny Pacheco wrote The king of punctuality to be sung by the Dunbar of salsa: Héctor Lavoe, famous for arriving late to his presentations. Lateness, it is true, has saved the lives of people who miss flights and then fall out of the clouds. And some other few good things it must have, so that so many human beings practice it. But it leaves more troubles than satisfactions. It is worth remembering four stories of those who do not pay attention to the hands.

First story. Juan Luis was destined to become a footballer. So much so that he managed a fleeting step through the lower divisions of two professional teams. In music he had some skill, but it was a lesser passion courtside. When he was fifteen, he composed his first song with a friend, and a relative gave him the chance to record his songs in a studio as a birthday present. “The first day I went to record my first song,” he recalls, “we had to be there at around five. I am fulfilled, exaggeratedly fulfilled”. He was going to sing it next to a childhood friend, with whom he had decided to form a duet. He was there five minutes before the production team, “and this madman did not arrive.” He waited 45 minutes and decided to do it himself. After a while, the late man, named Arias, appeared to record the second song with Juan Luis and, after the session, Londoño told Arias: “I love you very much, thank you very much for motivating me to be here, but I have codes and one of they is the discipline; You just arrived late for me and that shows that we are not going to have a good life, or career, as a duo; So, thank you very much and I will continue on my way”. Arias disappeared and Juan Luis, as he told the journalist Marcelo Longobardi, from Cnn in Spanishbecame famous as the Maluma we know today.

Second story. George had a reputation for being a stickler for punctuality. Some believe that he would have liked being a sailor, because he spent his life facing a sea of ​​difficulties. He came out on top with an undeniable blend of a flair for decision-making, the ability to delegate, and battle-tested punctuality. One day, one of his secretaries arrived after an hour for a duly notified meeting. When George asked him the reason for the delay, he received the answer that it was the fault of the watch, that it had failed. George looked him in the eye and said: “then you must get another watch; Or I another secretary. History has forgotten the name of the collaborator, but not the name of the boss: George Washington.

Third story. Pedro had a key appointment on July 1, 1989. One that required mathematical punctuality. While many latecomers make efforts to arrive on time, Pedro has always said that lateness not only doesn’t bother him, but rather seduces him. That day, the delay had to do with the men’s time trial and the women’s time trial. At the prologue of the Tour de France, in Luxembourg, he appeared late and lost two minutes and forty seconds. Almost three, which damaged his temper and made him continue to perform less the following day. Pedro, whom we remember as Perico Delgado, missed that year’s tour for default. He confessed to the journalist Toni Canyameras that he had been asked many times how many trains he had missed due to his disregard for the hours: “trains, not one; plane, one, because I left the tickets at home… and a Tour de France!”

fourth story. Gustavo’s rule was lateness and even never showing up… And let’s leave it that way, because this story has to be written in four years.

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