IS THE UNPUNCTUAL WOMAN A MENACE? COMMENTATOR’S VIEW

Greymouth Evening Star, 2 December 1950, Page 10

IS THE UNPUNCTUAL WOMAN A MENACE? COMMENTATOR’S VIEW

The unpunctual woman, according to many men, is a menace and the cause of an immense amount of irritation, frustration' and sometimes permanent unhappiness. But the woman herself has excuses for her unpunctuality, good ones and bad ones, real ones and false, though few people believe them. ■ MacDonald Hastings is different and in the 8.8.C.’s “Woman’s Hour” he'broadcast what he described as a letter of sympathy to the unpunctual woman who, he confesses, has a curious attraction for him. He knows all her excuses and appears to believe them. “Besides,” as he said to his unpunctual listeners, “you know you’re worth waiting for, don’t you? Otherwise you wouldn’t be late.”

Despite his apparent sympathy with the unpunctual woman Mr Hastings had the last word, which was most infuriating of him. He loves the unpunctual woman' and, more than that, he is grateful to her ever since a day, many springtimes ago, when he made an appointment to . meet a girl in a museum. She kept him waiting for three quarters of an hour and in that intervening age he examined every- bone of every prehistoric animal exhibited in every show case, until he went home, alone and disconsolate. Fortunate Happening

He heard afterwards that the dilatory lady arrived breathlessly ten minutes after he had left, which was fortunate for them both, fortunate for him because he was in a reckless springtime mood and had the lady been both punctual and oncoming, she might now have been Mrs Hastings; and fortunate for her because she subsequently married a rich man who could afford to employ a chauffeur to do the waiting for him.

And Hastings, having waited a few more years—though not always for the same woman—eventually found one even more worth waiting for. And ever since that lucky day in the museum he has felt more kindly towards women who are constitutionally unable to keep appointments.