Waiting

I wait and wait, it's my lifestyle at this point. Me and everybody else I know. Waiting. In line-ups, for change, for a turn.

I'm waiting for my nails to grow back because I cut them off so I could fuck my girlfriend better and now people look askance at my one short hand one long hand style.
But I like it.

I'm waiting to get my motorcycle license because I'm waiting to get the money for a bike and insurance. Health insurance, I mean.

I'm constantly waiting on line, always in the middle of the line, too far in to step out but nowhere near the front; I'm waiting to hear back about gigs and jobs and calls and waiting to find out if I have enough. Waiting for the money that self-styled pimp I worked one forgettable nigt for to come around to me.

I'm waiting to get the money together for grad school, waiting for my technology to work, waiting for my mother to find out about my illicit everything, waiting to kiss the right person and waiting for forgiveness for kissing the wrong one.

I could be waiting for marriage, for the approval of my community or the hand of my father to trick me out but, no.
And I'm not in line at the food bank anymore or waiting for a benefits interview.

I could be waiting to retire from the dead end job I quit as an administrative assistant at a hoity university that I could potentially wait to apply to as a student and then wait to find out if I got into, but I hated waiting on the biweekly paycheck that was never quite enough to cover the cost of getting up at 7 am to fight a bunch of burned out people for space on the train and getting home at 6 too traumatized by getting yelled at for nothing all day to do much besides watch Law & Order and shudder. And I hated waiting for commercials to be over while I was watching my stupid TV show.

I wait for the time to come to me. Or, at least I used to.

How much time can one girl spend waiting?

Post Office - 25 minutes a week

Bank - 10 minutes a week

For the bathroom in my apartment and at bars - five minutes twice a day, 70 minutes a week

For the train - six minutes twice a day and two minutes twice a day and 10 minutes once a day, 182 minutes a week

For my internet to work - 15 minutes a day, 105 minutes a week

For calls to call back - half an hour every other day, 90 minutes a week.

So it seems that I wait, on average, 482 minutes a week, which is eight hours. If my life were unionized, that would be one shift of waiting a week. Who's gonna pay me for that?

It looks like I'll just have to get the money myself - just gotta wait on this one phone call.