“Supper’s ready!” is the call.
“Wait-a-minute!” the reply.
“Clean your room!”
“Wait-a-minute!”
“Telephone’s for you”
“Wait-a-minute!”
They can already be seated at the table, moving the broom or picking up the receiver, but the inevitable reply to any request, suggestion or command is the same “Wait-a-minute.”
Age doesn’t matter and the wording may vary, but the meaning is always very clear. Take the other day for instance. We were all sitting around the living room, watching the rain, appreciating the benefits to the garden when my four-year-old niece begins to chant, “Rain, rain, go away, come back next time.” We all want other things, even the weather, and other people to wait for us.
Columnists like Erma Bombeck can tell you how to cope and keep your sense of humor. Columnists like Dr. Joyce Brothers and Ann Landers can tell you how to cope. I haven’t learned to cope. Therefore I can’t tell you anything. I can only report the phenomenon.
My mother tells me that I deserve all the “wait-a-minutes” I get because I gave her fits when I was a youngster. With my nose always stuck in a book, I don’t ever recall smarting off with “wait-a-minute.” She admits that I didn’t say a word. I just didn’t even hear her call in the first place.
Really, I think it’s a plague growing worse every day and air conditioning is partially to blame. With air conditioned rooms and automobiles, we don’t slow down during the summer months. And when a family of five active people all continue to do their own thing, we must stay on schedule. I keep telling them we don’t have time for “wait-a-minutes” these days.
And when they hollered “Deadline” thirty minutes ago, I knew what to say - “wait-a-minute!”
1981
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