Because Valeria is always late, because I’d like to have dinner with her at seven, and because, if I ask her to meet me at the restaurant at seven, I might not have dinner until eight, I ask Valeria to meet me at the restaurant at six. This plan, I tell myself, is a bold and ingenious way of defeating lateness. Even if Valeria arrives forty-five minutes late for our six o’clock dinner, she will, without knowing it, be fifteen minutes early for our seven o’clock dinner. I’ll then feel grateful to her for being fifteen minutes early instead…