How to Be a Time Nazi

I come from a family of fashionably early people. As a child, I'd have to tell my father to pick me up from friends' birthday parties late, just so that he wouldn't arrive half an hour early. You know how there's that one awkward parent, sitting there watching his kids make bad decisions from being crazy sugar highs and stuff their faces with cake?

Yeah, that was my family. Hi Mom, hi Dad!

But like all charming, quirky parental characteristics, my family's tendency to be those people to arrive at an airport four hours early has since rubbed off on me and I've developed some tips on how to be a time nazi, specifically of the employment and friend-gathering sort.

Now, being an employment time nazi is tricky business, as you want to get there early, but not so early that your boss sees you and goes "my, my, Alphonso, we could really use another set of hands around here. Want to clock in early?"

To which you look very confused and say "I'm Alphonso's twin, Ricardo," or pretend you come from the planet Zork and don't speak English.

If you want the short road to success, just become REALLY REALLY freaked out that people are going to hate you and never speak to you again because you were five minutes late to their party. That usually works.

However. For the more mundane activities, make sure that you freeze in front of your computer, refreshing Facebook two hours prior to arrival time. That way you won't distract yourself with anything remotely interesting; instead, you'll learn that everyone your age is getting married and you're just LOL-ing in front of cartoons with your beanie babies all day. 1.5 hours prior to arrival time, psych yourself out with worst-case-traffic/death/needing to jam to that song on the radio/cops stop you scenarios possible and decide you'll walk instead.

No matter what, leave an hour earlier than necessary. When else can you sink yourself into a nice existential crisis while waiting for it to be acceptable arrival time?

Drink an obscene amount of coffee, so that you spend normal sleep time getting ready for the next day.

Don't forget to cover up the dark circles under your eyes. The trick is to fool people into thinking you're normal, and that your life doesn't revolve around time.

Remember to round up, so when the clock at work says 4:45 and you're scheduled until five, what's the difference, really?

Rounding up works particularly well for workouts--when you flopped around in front of the TV for 35 minutes, you can really say you worked out for three hours.

But the most important step is to get outrageously angry at anyone who arrives later than 15 minutes early. Because, logic.

Namaste.