Patience is a virtue -- well, it's someone's virtue I'm sure!!

The clock. It must be running slow. No. It’s broken. Some idiot forgot to put new batteries in it!!! Damn! That’s it. Oh. The hands moved. The second hand sluggishly twitched again and again but the minutes just didn't seem to pass. It’s broken. Definitely.

Five o’clock. Finally! My god, what was wrong with that clock!!!

He pushed the buttons to log himself out just a bit too hard, brutally actually, bruising the poor computer keys. (Well, it seemed as if it would if the computer wasn’t, well, a non-living thing!) The computer was only trying to shut down. (“It takes as long as it f---ing takes!” he could hear the computer whisper.)
Come on. Come ON! First the clock. Now this. That screen picture of the company logo looking back so smugly at him, just knowing that he was in a hurry. It was all taking an eternity!!!

Black screen. Success! He pushed his way out of the building, one arm in his jacket, the other jutting out in front of him, moving his bulk through the queue of time-clock punchers who didn’t have any reason to be there in front of him, he reasoned unreasonably, and tried, to no avail, to hide his excitement from inquisitive eyes.

Jumping in his car, catching the free arm of his coat on the greasy door lock, he jammed his key into the ignition. The trunk key. Righted that wrong. And of course this was the time that the seatbelt got twisted and turned around. Arrrgh!!!!

One more minute getting onto the expressway and rush hour would be upon him, a stampede of iron and rubber, and he'd never get there.

The exit for the hotel couldn't come quickly enough. He didn’t remember it being this far down the expressway; in actuality he drove this route every day and was a mere 5 miles from his destination.

Turn signal on. Turn left at the light. The light. Red of course. Sit and wait. Sit and wait!! He breathed a long sigh then, Green! Speed ahead. Stop. Damn. Every traffic light was out of synch today. He knew that they were red longer than ever before. His fingers tap tap tapping on the steering wheel did nothing to make the red change to green any faster than programmed.

Green! Jackrabbit start. A tiny squeal from his tires. Damned traffic! Every car on the road was trying to cut him off and delay him on his journey, his quixotic quest. They all had it 'out' for him. He just knew it.

He wasn't late when he got there; he was on time, up to the second, but it was seconds, minutes, hours, days, and weeks later than he wanted it to be. Their schedules finally corresponded. There were hours available to them tonight for the first time.

He managed to detangle from his seat belt as he pulled into the hotel parking lot outside the door to the room. Turned off the engine. Pulled the key from the ignition. Unplugged his phone, his GPS, his iPod , stored them out of sight, all in record time.

Grabbed his small bag of essentials. Opened the car door. Leapt out, well, leaping was in his mind, actually he stumbled a little in his haste getting caught up in the twisted seatbelt again, but managed to get out of the car with some semblance of dignity, locked the car doors, took one deep, deep breath, and another, smoothed back his unruly mop of dark hair, took another deep breath just for good measure, trembled just a little…okay, a lot...and knocked on the door.
And waited, patiently, for her to answer.