“Tired of Waiting for You” by The Kinks
This evening I was supposed to have band rehearsal. Yes, I’m in a band… Sunday evening, our keyboard player asked me to get together sometime this week to work on a song I’d written. We settled on Thursday and I put it in my phone, making it official. 🙂
I knew today was going to be a LONG day. And it was. But the only things to do after a long day are relax or have fun. I was excited to work on this song and had no problem with all of the shitty things associated with it.
- You see we hold our rehearsals and studio sessions at our lead singers house. He just so happens to live 20 miles from my home, 25 miles from my office.
- With my new job, I can only rehearse after work, which means after 5:30 or so. Going 25 miles in rush hour traffic can easily take you over an hour.
- Going straight to rehearsal after work means no dinner. So I stopped at Whattaburger near his house. They were out of chicken strips and asked me to pull around and they’d bring it out to me. 20 minutes passed and I went inside. They’d forgotten about me and were out of chicken strips again. They comped my meal, apologized profusely and 10 minutes later I had my meal in hand, although it was technically 30 minutes later.
- If you arrive after 7:30 pm on a weeknight to my apartment complex, all of the close parking is taken (including by my roommate’s boyfriend). You’re forced to park 8 buildings from your own.
All of these things suck but are not a concern when you’re doing what you’re supposed to. Sacrifices I make to rehearse or record with my band. HOWEVER, these things are not okay when other people screw up.
As I left the Whattaburger down the street from the house, the lead singer returned an earlier call. He wasn’t home b/c the keyboard player hadn’t answered any calls that day. Okay, call the keyboard player. He started by making excuses, backtracking. It was obvious he had no idea why I thought we were getting together. It was someone else’s fault. I mean no one else was available. We’re getting together tomorrow. Blah blah blah. When I mentioned the name of the specific song we were supposed to work on, I could practically hear the light bulb go on it his head. “Oh, Tiff. That’s all on me. I completely forgot.”
Being completely annoyed, I refused to make him feel better about forgetting. It was his idea. He set it up. And then tried to blame other people? No. Okay, okay. Shit happens. Things get lost. And all of the crappy additions making this situation worse are not his fault. BUT admitting fault is not the same as apologizing. I wanted to hear him say I’m sorry. I’d just sat in an hour of traffic, waited 30 minutes for 3 minute food, lost any good parking at home and all I get is “That’s all on me”? No shit, Sherlock. It couldn’t be on anyone else. I just need to hear you apologize. Be sorry I just wasted 2 hours of my life b/c you were too lazy to write an appointment you set down.
Cooling off but still annoyed,
Jo’van
3 Comments
Comments RSS TrackBack Identifier URI
The Truth: According to Jo'van 
Not that you should have to but I do at times use language to coerce an apology if I know it’ll make me feel better just to hear it. Even if I know they didn’t necessarily say it self-propelled. But what can be better is saying what you went through to provoke them buying you dessert.
“I just went thru 1.5 hrs of traffic and didn’t even buy the ice cream sundae with caramel, chocolate chips and extra cherries because I was worried it would melt (puppy dog face, bat eye, bat eye)”. I tried convincing some people to give me a piggy back ride but it’s been 1.5 yrs and it still hasn’t worked. I’m wondering if that’s cuz I keep trying to get them from friends who happen to be girls. Plus that may involve touching you don’t want.
Joookes aside, it is lame. I think “I’m sorry” can go a long way and a lot of people don’t have that common ettiquette drilled into them. It does have to be rationed. I don’t wanna overhear it either cuz that makes me think it means nothing to you or some people use it as counter-manipulative to get you to let them off the hook very easily. Not to say you hold a grudge but i think you know what i mean. you did wrong (shake finger), you need to understand that.
oh and f’real, I text people with “so i’ll be there at 7p” or whatever to make sure they’ll be there or let me know now they forgot. pre-emptive measures help. again, it shouldn’t be on you but hey, saves trouble at times. It has for me.
I agree but I HATE babysitting adults. The sad part is that while I was in traffic I called both the lead singer and the keyboard player to see if they’d like me to get anything for them at Whattaburger. I figured calling would be easier than texting and just decided not to leave voicemails. Go figure.