i want it now

It was not the answer I wanted.

I tried to phrase the question in such a way that it was quite clear that I was looking for agreement:

“Would you wait until December THIRD just to save $50 on a phone you really wanted?”

I asked everyone I saw that morning what they would do. And the responses were unanimously in favor of my whim, which meant that I would get the phone today. Yay! I had no choice but to disqualify several responses for a host of reasons; you see, most of those respondents clearly had not quite understood the question. Others were unable to set aside their personal biases about trivial facts like what $50 could buy, how little time there was until December 3rd, etc. etc, blah blah blah.

And yet, it nagged at me a little bit. $50. So I called my cell phone carrier and very nicely explained that I would become eligible for my “new every two” discount in just a few days, and I was so impressed with the super snazzy new phone that had just come out, and I really didn’t want to wait. Couldn’t they pretty please just nudge the date back a teensy wittle bit for me? The customer service person was optimistic, and just had to clear it with her manager, I busied myself preparing the order. When she came back and told me NO, I was chagrined. It was not the answer I wanted.

I moped about this for a while, continuing to pose the hypothetical question to others about what they would do. I sent the query out to my e-mail peeps, just looking for the validation I needed to blow the money and get what I wanted, now.






I like to imagine that the light responses were due to the lateness of the hour on that Friday afternoon, the fact that some sisters were preparing for rock star status while others were – I don’t know – too busy for e-mail? That had to be it, it's not like they suspected that I was going to cave and get what I wanted regardless of their opinions on the matter. But I knew I could count on my big sister MB, who although on the east coast, was, like me, trudging through the tail end of a brutal work week.

A short time later, I thought I saw/hear her saying “Dude, Dec. 3 is NOT that far away. Save the $50 put it towards a nice sushi dinner." something, but I must have been mistaken.

Meanwhile, I was not quite ready to give up on my friends at the cell phone company. I had been a loyal customer of theirs for years, and the renewal date was just a month a few days away! I decided to try a different approach, employing my writing whiles to plead this most desperate case. Perhaps I let it slip that my husband was hinting around that he planned to buy me an iphone for my upcoming birthday. In any case, it worked! They pushed my renewal date back to that very moment, and within moments the fancy new phone was aboard a fed ex truck en route to its rightful place in my palm. Now, can anyone teach me how to use it?

MB responded later that day that she had been well aware I was not going to heed her advice; she referenced this post where I discussed my inability to delay gratification. It made me think of a comment my friend Lizbeth made the other day about an event that we dreaded attending. I said: “I don’t want to go. I’m not going.” She said: “I don’t want to go. But I will, because I’m the oldest and I have to.”

Does our birth order predict our capacity to wait patiently for good things to come?