Nancy Young wrote:

> > While I have a tendency to arrive exactly on time or within 5 minutes either
> > way... (it happens)... I find it incredibly annoying when people are 15
> > minutes (or more) and don't call to notify me that they're late (presuming
> > that I'm hosting a meal/event). Of course, like all things, sometimes
> > being late doesn't matter but if a meal is planned for ... say, 6:00 and you
> > have begged to bring the appetizers and it's now 6:15...*that's annoying*!
> > It's also the last time I'll allow you to bring the appetizers and/or I'll
> > have others prepared 'just in case'. LOL
>
> Sometimes being late is not the fault of the guest. For instance,
> I can never plan on the traffic I will encounter. I leave plenty of
> time, but there's an accident on the bridge at the same time every
> single person in NY and NJ decide to swap states, I *will* be late.

True. There are occasions when people run into unexpected problems. A road
closure is a valid excuse. Routine heavy traffic is a lame excuse. The problem
with late guests is usually the guests. There are some people who are *always*
late. My family can usually be counted on to be on time. Most of my in laws can
be counted on to be a little late, and some of them are guaranteed to be very
late. My wife thought I was intolerant not to accept my nephew's excuse for being
late for the last family Christmas party that her father hosted ... three hours
late. The story was that he had to take his daughter to the hospital in the middle
of the night. Aside from the fact that he is separated and the daughter lives with
her mother, he is usually at least two hours late. It just seemed to me that he
had come up with what he thought was a better excuse.

A friend of my wife's is divorced and lives close to us. We used to invite her for
dinner once in a while but got fed up with her being late all the time. Usually
she is at least an hour late. Last year she was two hours late for Thanksgiving
dinner. We had spoken to her at 4 pm. and told her dinner was at 6 and come early
for drinks. When she didn't show we called to make sure she was ok, but there was
no answer. When she finally showed up we found out that after we hd spoken to her
she drove to a town about 20 miles away for a craft show. The next time she was
invited for dinner she was late. The only reason she was invited that time was
that she was at the house and we had a roast in the oven. Just as I put the
Yorkshire puddings in the oven she had to run home to feed her cats. It's a three
minute drive to her house. She was gone for over an hour. We just went ahead
with dinner and never invited her again. Curiously, she has developed a habit of
dropping by our house in time to be invited to stay for dinner, but we don't
bother inviting her to stay.