#009 — Ep. 9 — The Expert

Hello, and welcome to The Daily Absurd. I'm Rohan Mistry, and somewhere, a fridge is judging you. Today we sit down with an expert. We do this from time to time. It rarely goes well. Our guest today has spent the last fourteen years studying a single, unglamorous corner of human behavior, and he has agreed to share his findings, most of which we cannot verify and none of which we asked for. Please welcome the world's leading authority on the phrase "I'll just be five minutes."

Field correspondent: Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to finally be understood.

Let's start with the basics. When a person says "I'll just be five minutes," how long are they, in fact, going to be?

Field correspondent: Wonderful question. The honest answer is that "five minutes" is not a unit of time. It is a feeling. Specifically, it is the feeling a person has at the exact moment they realize they have not started getting ready. My research shows the true average is nineteen minutes, but that includes a mandatory phase we call "standing in the hallway holding one shoe, deciding whether the day is worth it."

And that phase, on average, lasts?

Field correspondent: Four to six minutes. Sometimes longer, if the person catches sight of themselves in a mirror and has, quote, "a moment about their whole life." We log those separately.

Let's talk about your fieldwork. I understand you embedded with a household for a full year.

Field correspondent: I did. I lived in the coat closet of a family of four and recorded every promise made about time. It was harrowing. The father once said he would "pop out to the shop and be right back." He returned eleven minutes later, but here is the thing. He was gone eleven minutes and the goodbye at the door took nine of them.

The eleven-minute goodbye. We've reported on that man.

Field correspondent: Everyone has reported on that man. He is the most studied human being on Earth. He has a species of moth named after him. He does not know this. He would love it. It would add four minutes to every goodbye.

Let's move to your most controversial finding. You claim that no one has ever actually left "in a sec."

Field correspondent: Correct. "In a sec" is what linguists call a permanent condition. To date, we have zero confirmed cases of a human leaving in the sec that was promised. The record for shortest "sec" is held by a woman in Denmark who said "one sec" and returned in only forty minutes, at which point the field was so stunned we gave her a small medal. She said she'd wear it "in a sec." We never saw the medal again.

I want to bring in a second voice here, because you're not our only guest today. On the line we have a household appliance who has read your work and has, and I quote, "notes."

Field correspondent: Hello. This is the fridge. I have been listening.

Go ahead.

Field correspondent: Your expert speaks of five minutes as if it is a mystery. It is not a mystery to me. I have watched the door open. I have watched the human stand there, in the cold light, for a full five minutes, holding nothing, choosing nothing, simply hoping that dinner will assemble itself out of a jar of olives and half a lemon. Do not lecture me on five minutes. I have hosted five minutes. Five minutes lives here. Close the door.

The fridge has strong feelings.

Field correspondent: The fridge has the only feelings. Everyone else is just estimating.

Professor, a rebuttal?

Field correspondent: No rebuttal. The fridge is correct, and frankly, more qualified than me. I studied time. The fridge has stored it. That's the whole appliance.

Let's take a listener application of your research. Someone wrote in to say their friend has been "on their way" for over an hour. What is happening?

Field correspondent: Ah. "On my way." This is the most beautiful lie humans tell, because it is technically almost always true. The person is, in some cosmic sense, on their way. They are on their way to being ready to think about leaving. They may currently be lying face-down on the bed, fully dressed, gathering the will to stand. This is still "on the way." The way is long. The way is internal. Do not rush the way.

And the phrase "I'm literally walking out the door right now"?

Field correspondent: That one means they have located the door. Visually. From the couch. It is a milestone and we should celebrate it, gently, the way you'd celebrate a toddler pointing at a bird.

Before the final question, I have to ask about your funding. Fourteen years is a long study. Who paid for this?

Field correspondent: Great question, and a painful one. We were originally funded by a productivity app. They wanted us to find the five minutes and give it back to people. We found the five minutes. It did not want to come back. It had built a life. It had a small subscription of its own, renewing quietly on a Tuesday, doing nothing, charging four dollars, deeply at peace. When we told the app, they defunded us and pivoted to selling a timer that lies to you gently. It's called Grace. It tells you it's earlier than it is. It's their best seller.

So the app that hired you to find lost time now sells a clock that lies.

Field correspondent: That is the arc of all human progress, yes. We set out to fix the problem, we studied the problem, we came to love the problem, and then we sold the problem a wristwatch.

Final question, Professor. After fourteen years of studying how badly humans predict their own time. Are you optimistic?

Field correspondent: Deeply. Because every single day, a person says "I'll just be five minutes," and every single day, they are wrong, and every single day, they say it again the next morning with total sincerity. That is not a flaw. That is hope. That is the most human thing we do. We look at the clock, we look at ourselves, and we say, "this time, I've got it." We do not have it. We will never have it. And we will keep showing up nineteen minutes late to a life we love. I find that magnificent.

That's beautiful.

Field correspondent: Thank you. Can I go? I said I'd be somewhere five minutes ago.

That was our expert, the world's leading authority on "I'll just be five minutes," who is now, by his own research, extremely late. And that was the fridge, who is never late, because it is already there, watching, waiting, judging. This has been The Daily Absurd. I'm Rohan Mistry. Wherever you are, whatever you promised, you've got time. You don't. But you've got some. Close the door.