Better an hour early than a minute late

The title of today's post was the advice my dad gave me when I was getting ready to go to a job interview some time ago. Anyone who knows my dad would not be surprised by the advice. My dad, though not Swiss, may as well be. He is never late for anything.

Last Friday I met him, my brother, and my mom to go for a road ride. The plan was to meet at my parents' house at 2:00. I showed up a couple of minutes after 2:00 and still hadn't changed. They were all in the driveway in full kit, ready to go. I should have known with that crowd that when I said 2:00, it really meant 1:50.

This morning, I picked up 710 pounds of chocolate from a large distribution center in Salt Lake. If you're curious as to why I picked up 710 pounds of chocolate, then you don't know my wife. Anyway, I figured it would take some time to load up that much chocolate, so I asked my dad to meet me there at 8:00. Knowing he would be early, I arrived at 7:42. He got there at 7:43.

We had to wait until 8:00 when the distribution center officially opened, then we had to wait five more minutes for the all-powerful girl in the dispatch booth to decide she was ready to deal with us. Then we waited another 10 minutes for the guy with the forklift to go pick up our order and bring it to the dock.

Most of the people who come in and out of there are truck drivers hauling large loads to grocery stores. Consumers buying foods at wholesale and in wholesale quantities is pretty unusual. So we didn't really fit in as we sat there talking about skiing and my dad picked my brain about what I wear to stay warm on the mountain and he told me about the funeral he conducted yesterday.

When the door finally rolled open and our pallet was dropped behind my car, it took me about one minute to go through the order and see that everything was there. It took my dad, the warehouse guy, and me another minute to 90 seconds to load it all into my car. Seems like having him there was overkill. To anyone else, I would apologize for the unnecessarily early start to the day, but I know he would have been up anyway. I gave him a small bag of dark chocolate as a thank you, and we went on with our days.

The only downside to having 710 pounds of chocolate in the car is the smell. I really like chocolate and the smell of chocolate. But I have to admit that even for me it's a bit strong.