Late for Lunch with My Sister

Hurry, hurry, hurry.  The word repeated itself in my head as I ran the blocks of San Francisco's Financial District.  The training session for the new software at work had ended late.  As soon as the instructor finished talking, I had run out of the classroom, not even bothering to stop by my cubicle to pick up my cell phone, and rushed out of the building (or as much as possible, given the slow elevator).  Now, I was practically running through the streets, running uphill towards Golden Star, the Vietnamese pho restaurant where I was supposed to meet my sister for lunch.  Panting, I finally made it to the restaurant, ten minutes late, where my sister didn't bother listening to my blurted apology.

"Where were you?" she exclaimed loudly, her face knotted in anger.  "I tried calling you on your cell and you didn't even bother to pick up.  If you are going to be late, you can at least pick up or call.  I've been standing here, wasting my time."

"I am sorry," I pleaded again.  "The training session ran over and I got here as fast as I could."

"You are wasting my time.  You are so inconsiderate."

"Look, let's just eat, okay."

She didn't let up, not for a second while we sat down, ordered our respective pho and received it from the waitress.  Finally, I said, "You know, you are almost always late.  There are times when I've waited for you for an hour and I never gave you guff over it.  I figured you had a reason."

She finally paused for a minute.  Then, she responded: "I make much more money than you do.  If I am an hour late, that doesn't compare to you making me wait ten minutes.  You make less in ten minutes than I do in an hour.  If you have to wait an hour for me, that's okay.  As an attorney, I bill more in ten minutes than you earn per hour."

"Fine.  If that's the way you feel, maybe we shouldn't meet for lunch ever again.  Let's just eat and leave."

All my life, my sister had groomed me to believe that being late for anything with her was a cardinal sin.  One time she told me that if anyone was fifteen minutes late for any occasion, she thought it appropriate to leave.  Even as I made every effort to be on time with her, knowing that she'd raise holy hell if I was late, she made zero effort.  She was commonly ten to fifteen minutes late for every single meeting with me.  When she laid out the worth of our respective times in dollars and cents rather than in human consideration, I realized that I was always going to be worthless to her.