The article describes a humorous discussion among friends about chronically late people, dubbed "lateniks." The conversation started casually and ended in mutual diagnoses on the topic. The text proposes that this human category deserves official recognition due to its frequency and consistency.
Lateniks are divided into three main categories: the admitted ones, who publicly acknowledge the problem; those in recovery, trying to improve; and the deniers, who have been late for years but treat each delay as something exceptional and unexpected.
The article satirizes the most common excuses used by these professionals of tardiness, including traffic, young children who need to use the bathroom at the exact moment of departure, ride services like Uber, weather conditions, elevators, pets, previous meetings, and even astrological phenomena like retrograde Mercury. The text ironically notes that these excuses are creative but rarely include the person themselves as responsible.
The author, who identifies as a mother, acknowledges that young children really can cause delays, but observes that there is an age limit for using this argument, suggesting that when the child is about to enter college, maybe it's time to find another explanation. The article remains inconclusive, briefly mentioning a phenomenon that would defy physics.
