I have been cursed my whole life with impatience. I crave immediate gratification, and the thought of waiting for something, anything, is annoying to intolerable, depending on how great my desire is for whatever it is I want. It is not a trait I am proud of, but it is what it is.

Waiting is such a challenge for me. Long lines balk me. I have walked out of restaurants if the lobby was too full, movie theaters if the lines are too long, grocery stores if the checkout lanes are crazy busy, and many stores for the same reason. I will not pull into drive-through windows or car washes if the lines of cars are too long, and if I get stuck in a traffic jam, I go nearly batsh*t crazy.

Probably the worst offense is when it comes to ordering things on line. I have been spoiled by fast deliveries, and the longer I have to wait for something to arrive, the more I am likely to skip it and find something I can get faster, even if I don’t like it as much.

Case in point: We are in the process of giving our outdoor spaces a little facelift. I found an outdoor rug that I love, but it will not arrive until May 12th. It is the last item we need for our makeover, so I was not keen on waiting so long to get it. I want to be done with the set up NOW! However, Jeffrey convinced me to order the rug I wanted and just wait for it.

The waiting has been excruciating. So much so, that I have actually gone online to look for a cheap rug I can order and use temporarily until the one I really like arrives. How crazy is that? (I’ve actually managed to resist doing that so far.)

You may wonder why I don’t just drive to a local store and find one I can bring home the same day. Good question.

One. I try to avoid going out unnecessarily because I am not one of the people that believes COVID is over and I’m free to move about as much as I want, whenever I want, without great risk to my personal health. So if I can order something and have it delivered, without that unnecessary exposure, that’s my preferred way to go. (I realize my extreme isolation is probably a bit excessive at this point. I’m working on relaxing my anxiety about it and getting out into the world more.)

Two. There is always the risk of lines, which I’ve already explained I hate. And awful people.

Three. And this is a big one. I get a little obsessive about trying to find something I want, and I could wind up spending the entire day going store to store looking for what I want, wasting an entire day, a bunch of gas, adding a lot of exposure, and still wind up returning home without the desired item, dejected and unsatisfied. At least if I order something online, the only one who has to suffer is me waiting for it to arrive. (Jeffrey accompanies me on all of my must-have-right-now hunts, so he suffers when I refuse to go home and want to keep going to the next store.)

So here I sit, having an internal battle over whether I try to purchase a temporary rug or sit and wait patiently for my rug to arrive in 21 days.

The struggle is real, people.