Author: Ana Marinić, Klasična gimnazija, Zagreb
It happened… I don’t exactly remember the date, but some time during this last summer. It was really hot. Somewhere around 35°C in the shade. Too damn hot to even live, let alone anything else…but as always I had a training to go too. We had short distance runs on the track today so the training was, logically, at 11:30 on a track that has no shade whatsoever. Not that we have any other tracks, but stil, we could’ve had it sometime in the evening when the sun was already set. I was mentally preparing myself for the pain that awaits me. As soon as I stepped on the stadium, my coach, who was talking on the phone, stopped the conversation to start yelling at me. It didn’t bother me that he was yelling since that’s a completely normal thing for him, it’s just his way of talking. But he looked unusually angry so I came to realize that he was yelling because he was actually mad… I listened to him to figure out what was that all about. From the unconnected rambling sentences that were coming out of his mouth I gathered that he was mad because I was late. I pushed back the urge to laugh. Why? This was ridiculous for two reasons. The first one being that I was only few minutes late, I always try to be on time but sometimes I miss the tram or something, happens to everyone. And the second reason was that he is always late! That man would never ever come on time if he wasn’t already where he’s supposed to be. Sometimes not even then. Our training would always start at least 20 minutes after the arranged time! Sometimes it would happen that he’s not the last one to come, then he would be really mad at the last person and he’d always rush us to change. But that happened rarely and I wasn’t nearly the last to show up. So I was really confused at that point… none of the people I train with weren’t even there… why in the seven is he so mad about me being a few minutes late… I just apologized and said I’ll wait for the others to show up. I didn’t even want to bother and ask him what’s going on. I knew I’d just get more angry rambling sentences that woud only confuse me even further. He had that look of complete retreat, as if he just doesn’t know what to do with me anymore. I learned long ago not to take those looks personally, he’d have it every time someone of us wouldn’t do something he thought we should or in a way he wanted us to do it. I just shrugged it off and headed for the locker room to change. It was when I saw all the other’s stuff that I realized I wasn’t a few minutes late…I was an hour late.
Believe it or not, but this is a true story. Those who know me might find it more believeable than all of you for now strangers. I am a very confused person. At least we can laugh at it, right?
