My husband's job description:

Hurry up and wait!

Wait in the traffic with rain pouring down in torrents and cars clogging the circle so badly that no one is moving. The problem is simple: The right lane tried to merge left while the left lane did its best to merge right and traffic perpendicular to them all tried forcing its way straight ahead. A bus wiggled over. The blinkers blinked. The horns honked. The wipers wiped on their fastest speed. The lorry mates waved their arms out of windows for added emphasis. We in the blue truck hurried up and waited. The little buses called trotros squeezed through, not offering a foot of grace for the little blue pick-up that daringly inched its nose rightward. Then, seizing its chance, it scurried into a little space behind a trotro and in front of a little white car that honked loudly in protest as it took its reluctant turn to hurry up and wait.

Hurry up and Wait!

The paperwork trail was started. But the queues were long and only inched forward. The whole process could have been completed in twenty minutes if there were no lines. But there were. And it might not take long if things moved efficiently. But they didn’t. So they hurried up and waited while the officials behind the counter left their posts to go outside and do marching practice. The band played, the officials marched, and the men waiting on their paperwork had no choice but to hurry up and wait for another two hours until the practice drills and routines were done.

Hurry up and wait!

A mistake was made on the paperwork so the process needed to be started over. But the man they needed to see just left for lunch and would be gone for two hours, they said. There was nothing left to do but hurry up and wait.

Hurry up and wait!

Stand in this line only to be told you need to go to the next. Go to this office, then on to the next until you have been through 14 steps in all. Wait in queues full of clients who are doing a fine job of waiting like yourself. Sit and listen while the officials try to figure out what to do with your driver’s license that was issued in the North but you are trying to renew it in the South. It is a puzzling process, so hurry up and wait.

Hurry up and wait!

They said the container they are building for you will be done this week. But then the Boss traveled, so go ahead and wait. They’ll get it done “tomorrow,” of course, which literally translated simply means “not today.”

And then folks back home ask, “What does your husband do all day?” 

Go ahead and wait. 

I’ll tell you. . . “tomorrow.”