Over Time

Over Time

The formula for time is distance divided by speed. That does not correlate to anything, I just wanted to be informative.

6:30 am

Its Sunday morning, the weather is already beautiful at 72 degrees. The birds are out to get a jump start on enjoying this day before anyone else. Julian wakes up at 6:45, he has a day off and plans to make the most of it since it has rained the past few weekends, he was off. Julian takes a shower, brushes teeth and washes face. Opens his closet to pick out something to wear.

“Hmm, I’m thinking tank top and basketball shorts to start the day” Julian said to himself.

“Then tonight I will get dressed” Julian said excitedly.

Julian had a date Sunday night. With a girl he met at work and has fancied since he first laid eyes on her. Her name was Alyssa. She was 5’6, caramel complexion with hazel eyes, but in his words if he had to describe her, he would say simply “perfection”. The 9:00 pm date for Sunday night seemed so far away, but so close at the same time. Julian figured if he had already waited 5 months for this girl, another few hours would not hurt.

7:45 am

Dressed, Julian comes downstairs with phone in one hand and laptop in other.

“I wonder if its too early to call Alyssa” pondered Julian.

“Ehh, I will wait a little bit, I don’t want to seem overly excited” Julian again said to himself.

He slides open the shades to let the sun in. its such a perfect day. Time for some breakfast. Julian opens the refrigerator, frustrated, he sees there is no milk. Decides to make pancakes and eggs. Again, sadly, he is missing an ingredient as there are no eggs.

“You know what” said Julian, “I’m going to go to the store, that will help past time”.

He puts his sneakers on, gets his keys and hops in the car. Julian decides to go to Walmart, which is out of the way, but he has time to kill. He figures he can do a little extra shopping while at Walmart besides just getting eggs and milk. Puts the car in drives and begins his trip to Walmart.

8:53 am

Julian pulls into Walmart parking lot. Its kind of busy this early in the morning on a Sunday. He sits in the car for a few moments thinking. Then picks up his phone and texts Alyssa “Good Morning Sunshine”. He waits a few minutes, hoping she responds instantly. It does not happen.

“She probably still asleep, she worked last night” he thought.

While in Walmart, Julian picks up some snacks to go along with his eggs and milk. He also browsed in the male fragrance aisle to see if they had anything worth buying for him to wear tonight. He chose not to purchase anything from that section, as he is very particular about what he wears. Proceeds to go to checkout. He notices the lines are very long. They only have 2 aisles open and 2 self-checkout registers open. Annoyed, he contemplates just putting everything back and going to another store.

“No, I’m here now, and I don’t have anything to do, this wait won’t kill me.”

After 7 minutes, he is finally able to get into an open line, after an additional cashier opens a register. Amid paying, his phone rings. Excitedly, he reaches for his phone, in the process, dropping his eggs. Julian puts his phone back in his pocket and looks at the cashier and apologizes numerous times. Embarrassed, he decides he does not even want eggs anymore after the cashier suggested he go get a new carton and he will hold the line for him. He pays for his items and quickly leaves the store and heads to the car.

Putting his bags in the backseat, he opens his driver side door and gets in. Still flustered, he starts the car, but quickly remembers he received a phone call while he was in line. Hoping it was Alyssa, a slight disappointment came across his face when he seen it was his friend Kristian.

“I will call him back later; he probably doesn’t want anything important. Plus, he made me drop my eggs”, Julian said to himself jokingly. He drives off and heads back home.

10:00 am

He heads in the house from the patio door in the back which was unlocked. Puts his items on the counter and gets the cereal and milk to eat his breakfast. Eating his fruity pebbles and flicking through channels, Julian puts the remote down and picks up his phone to text Alyssa again. He was mid text when he seen the dots on the screen, meaning she was replying “Good Morning Handsome” came through on his screen, and that was the first smile he had since he got back from dropping eggs all over Walmart front lanes. Julian and Alyssa exchanged small talk for the next few minutes, before the final message came from Alyssa saying, “looking

forward to seeing you tonight.”

Julian responded back “It seems like its never going to get here lol.”

Alyssa lets him know she has a few tasks to do during the day and will text him later. They text each other “see you later”, and Julian continues to eat his cereal. He had not taken a bite since they started texting, which was 10 minutes ago. His cereal was soggy, he did not care, and just threw it away. He continues watching ESPN before figuring out what he was going to do with his day next

11:00 am

Done watching tv, Julian looks at the time and becomes restless, knowing only about 4 hours have passed, and he has 10 more hours to go before its date time. He decides to give Kristian a call back to see what he wanted. He calls Kristian.

“Yo, I missed your call, what’s up?” ask Julian.

“Nothing much, just wanted to see if you would like to go to the gym and play basketball” Kristian responded.

Initially, Julian had no interest in doing so. However, he concluded he could pass a lot of time by going to the gym.

“Sure, I’m down, I can meet you there in like 20 minutes” Julian said.

Kristian agreed and they hung up the phone. Already dressed to play basketball, all Julian had to do was put his shoes on. He puts them on and looks for his keys. Cannot find them. A slight panic occurs, but not fully, he is aware they must be somewhere. Remembering he did not need them to open his front door as he went through the back, he ran to the car. Low and behold they were still in the ignition. Feeling himself getting angered, he calms down and sits on the curb. He text Kristian “can’t make it, my keys are locked in the car, I’m about to call AAA.”

Julian calls AAA, and they advise him they will not be able to make it out to unlock his car until around 3pm. Initially getting upset with the response he received, Julian figured he can make the best of it. He agreed to have them come at 3pm, then quickly text Kristian, and ask if he can pick him up and take him to the gym with him. Kristian obliges, and in about 10 minutes, Kristian pulls up and they head to the gym. Julian declines to even further discuss the situation that just occurred. He had no issue explaining it to Alyssa in a text though, with her response “aww baby it will be ok”. That really brightened his mood.

12:27 pm

“Yo bro,” starts Julian, “I need to be back around my house before 3pm so AAA can unlock my car” he further explains.

“Not a problem, I’m just trying to get a quick workout, nothing serious” Kristian responded back.

They get to the gym and its packed. Julian thinks “this has been the story of my day”. They walk in the gym and head to the basketball courts. There are numerous people waiting to play, meaning Julian and Kristian had to wait a little bit to get on.

Constantly checking his phone for a message from Alyssa or just the time in general, Julian becomes a little on edge because of the time. It is finally their turn to play. Julian and Kristian pick their team and begin to play basketball.

2:45 pm

Playing longer than expected because they kept winning, when they finally lost, Julian walked to the side and picked up his phone and seen the time.

In a panic, he yelled to Kristian “Yo we got to go its almost 3.”

They pick up their stuff and rush to the car. Julian lives roughly 8 minutes away from the gym, so this seemed like a simple ride. What they did not consider was the tractor trailer that ran another truck off the road, on the route to Julian’s house. Traffic was backed up for miles, with really no exit to turn off to go a different direction.

“You can’t be serious man” Julian exclaimed.

While sitting in traffic for 11 minutes, Julian receives a call from AAA.

“Hello Julian, we are here and waiting for you to come out to open your car” said the AAA employee.

“I’m not actually there now, is it possible for you to open it without me being present? Julian reluctantly asked.

“Sorry bud, we aren’t allowed to do that, do you know how long it will be until you get here?” he asked.

Sadly, Julian responded “I have no clue, don’t worry about it, I will give you guys a call tomorrow, thank for your help.”

Dejected, Julian hangs up the phone. He has had enough of this day already, and now has no clue how he will get to this date tonight.

3:30 pm

Kristian and Julian pull up to the house finally.

“Ayo you know if you need to use my car tonight, I’m in the house for the night so you can borrow it” Kristian suggested.

Julian’s eyes lit up, “Thank you, you saved my night. You owe me anyway for the eggs breaking anyway” Julian said.

Puzzled, Kristian replied with “What?”

“Long story, I will explain it later” said Julian with a slight chuckle “I will call you later when I’m ready to come by and get the car, I will just Uber over there.”

In better spirits, Julian and Kristian sit in the car for a few minutes and talk about their day at the gym. Julian finally gets out and heads in the house. He then picks his phone up to text Alyssa, telling her how he got locked out his car, and missed AAA. He informs her that the date is still on, and he will see her at 9. Standing in the doorway, he has not taken a step further since they started their text conversation. After 5 minutes of texting, Julian puts his phone down and heads to go take a shower.

4:27 pm

After his second shower of the day, Julian throws on another pair of basketball shorts until he is ready to get dressed for his night out. He realizes he has a few hours left and some time to pass. So, he gets on X-Box One and plays Call of Duty with a few of his friends online.

Playing the game was relieving stress. Julian began to forget about the Walmart situation, the keys being locked in, and missing AAA. It has been a long day at this point, and this relaxing moment was perfect for him.

Constantly looking at the time, it appears to not be moving. He felt like he been playing Call of Duty for 4 hours, when its only 6pm. Between playing games on his phone, texting, and checking Facebook on his laptop, he was trying to pass time, but none of it was working.

“I guess I will just put a movie on, by the time it goes off, it will be time for me to get dressed” Julian said.

6:24 pm

Julian decides to watch one of his favorite movies “Dr Strange”, the irony, a movie about time, which he has struggled with today. He closes the shades, which may have been a huge mistake. Within 30 minutes, the expected happens, Julian falls asleep during the movie. During this time, his phone is constantly ringing, phone calls and text. He is oblivious to it.

9:08 pm

Its dark outside. It has become a little chilly outside, as it has begun to rain. The sound of the rain on the patio awakes Julian, as he left the door slightly opened. Frantically he picks up his phone and sees the time and missed phone calls and messages. There was Kristian asking if he still needed the car. There were calls from Alyssa as well as messages asking if he stood her up.

Julian calls Alyssa to apologize.

“I am so sorry, I fell asleep, today was so stressful for me and it just drained me” Julian explained

Alyssa understood, “Its ok, get your rest, we will try again another weekend, see you tomorrow at work.”

They hung up the phone. Disgruntled, Julian tosses his phone on the couch. He recapped in his mind how long he was in Walmart for because of the lines. Then how they left the gym too late. Which led to him missing AAA. And finally, how he fell asleep, and missed his date that he was looking forward to. At that point Julian just decided to go to bed because he realized for the day, he was fed up and just over time. Then he remembered that this week at work, was his week to work overtime.

9:57 pm

“Eh, bad day but its over, things will get better, when? Probably over time.” Julian lastly said with a little laugh to himself as he turned the tv off and went upstairs to bed.