Stealing Time

Can you steal time from twilight? I am not a very good thief. I have tried staying up all night, only to be forced to pay for it by sleeping through beautiful days. I’ve attempted to write or create through parts of the night. And I get away with it for awhile, but then, naps call to me until I fall into a chair and relinquish alertness for a coma. I may steal time—in a way—by multi tasking until it’s glaringly apparent that I am not good at either thing equally. I could steal your time…yeah, I could do that without even trying.
Instead, I’ll tell you all the ways time has been stolen from me. Like when I go shopping with my sister, which I am loathe to do for any reason. She has been known to take to identical pairs of shoes, and peruse their stitching, their eyelet configuration, the interior soles, the coloration of the leather and make comparisons for twenty minutes. When she can’t decide, she asks me, “Which pair do you like?” Honestly, by then, I don’t care. I’m less interested in nuances when I think precious daylight is a-wasting.
I’ve window shopped with a female relative who wanted more than her budget or mine could bear in a life time. She’s able to do this for hours. I’m bored after ten minutes.
I liked the way my dad shopped. He’d price something and think about it for days or weeks after. Maybe even save money for it. When he went to buy the item, he went in, picked it up, chose an unopened, undamaged box, paid and left. From the time we walked into the store until we stuffed the purchase in the car may have been ten minutes, and that was if we stood in line.
I could tell you about the people who dawdle in front of me below the speed limit. In our free country, they are free to travel at whatever speed they like. The only reason it irritates me is because they are wasting my time, stealing my time. Probably everyone has waited too long in a doctors or dentists office. Over the years, I’ve wised up enough to bring a book to read or a notebook to write in, so they can’t waste my time.
But stealing time? I already have too much to do in what had been allotted to me without taking it from people. My dad used to say, that whatever you steal will cost you three times the value. Since finding it to be true, it keeps me honest.