The lamest excuse ever

Some people are unreliable (me inclusive).

Then there are those who are remarkably reliable in one specific way: their unreliability never fails. They are reliable in being unreliable.  You can count on it. If a plan is made, you immediately begin making room for delay, adjustment, reinterpretation, excuses and the possibility that time, for them, is only a very loose suggestion, subject to interpretation.

I have a friend belongs firmly to that second category.

If we agree on 10:00, 10:00 is not really the time. It is simply the zero or first draft of the day. A tentative arrangement that will later be adjusted depending on unfinished errands, distracted conversations, misplaced priorities, and whatever else decides to join him before he joins the plan.

So when we had agreed to go somewhere and he delayed, I was not exactly surprised. I have enough history with this pattern to know when waiting stops being a sensible thing to do and it becomes necessary for me to move ahead, and so I started off without my friend.

I reached the destination safely and after a couple of hours of silence, I asked where he was. His answer was calm and confident...

"I am waiting out the rain."

I looked up.

The sky above me was so clear it almost felt like it was the deepest blue ever to emphasise how clear it was. Blue in every direction. Very very bright sunshine with  not a single cloud to offer any sort of support to his statement.

It was really such a beautiful day that even the excuse itself was embarrassed to be an excuse.

So naturally I looked again, just to be fair. Just for reasonable doubt. 

Still nothing. If anything, it felt hotter than before.

Then I remembered he was in Kampala, I was in Entebbe.

And apparently, because it was raining where he was, he had concluded that it must therefore be raining where I was too. Kampala receives rain, therefore Entebbe must be under similar sky management.

What surprised me most was not even the excuse itself, but who it came from.

This is someone who is genuinely intelligent. Very intelligent, in fact, and not modest about it either. He writes, thinks deeply, takes pride in being intellectually sharp, and often presents himself with the confidence of someone whose conclusions are unbreakable.

Which is why I found it quite astonishing that such a mind could build such a weak bridge between two places and call it logic. That because rain was falling in one location, another location must automatically be experiencing the same weather.

Mind you, this was all without calling to check in with the person at the destination.

At some point it became less about weather and more about the truth that he was where he wanted to be, and the excuse given was only because I asked and he needed to say something, because had he really been trying to come, surely curiosity alone would have asked one question:

"Is it raining there?"

But no.

The weather had already been decided on my behalf. And just like that, the excuse entered the hall of classics. Right next to:

• The dog ate my homework.
• I was just about to call you.
• My battery died.
• I did not see your message.
• Traffic was terrible.
• I forgot my phone.
• I slept off accidentally.
• Someone came just as I was leaving.
• I thought today was tomorrow.
• I am nearby, when nearby means still at home considering whether to bathe.

And of course, the modern masterpiece:

• "I am on my way."

A phrase that can mean anything from getting out of bed, entering the gate to still searching for socks.

Excuses are fascinating because they do not necessary reveal what happened but are more about how quickly a person can build a story that sounds adequate enough to go through the moment.

Some excuses at least attempt realism, while others already negate basic facts. This particular one carried rain into sunshine, and perhaps that is why it still stands out to me. And no, this is not because people delay. Yes, people delay all the time. But because now and then an excuse appears so fragile that even the sky will refuse to be innocently dragged in.

And honestly, the sky was a witness.

From where my feet are, some excuses do not need to be analysed. They implode and collapse the moment the are mentioned.