That my time is occasionally more important than many things? Like an ill-informed opportunity to meet Ron Swanson.
Earlier in the week, I saw plug on a local website for An Evening With Nick Offerman, I guess a touring appearance circuit in order to push Nick Offerman’s newest woodworking book Good Clean Fun: Misadventures in Sawdust at Offerman Woodshop. I thought to myself, this is something that intrigues me, getting to see and meet Ron Swanson. I hadn’t learned about this event until after it had passed, like most other cool occurrences throughout the city, and being held at Georgia Tech, it wasn’t in an inconvenient location.
However, I have a lot of things that I need to do, and some things actually have a short window in which I need to complete them. But as a diehard Parks and Rec fan, especially of Ron Swanson, it seemed like an opportunity that I shouldn’t let pass.
I decided to go.
In all fairness, the part of the evening where Nick Offerman spoke for an hour was great; he really speaks eloquently, with a tremendous amount of humility, and is a guy whose littlest expressions can elicit laughter from an audience, even when he’s not trying to make jokes.
However my beef with the evening was primarily the fact that the book signing part, that took nearly 2.5 hours of waiting before I got to spend 2.5 seconds with Nick Offerman himself, barely having enough time to update him on the Cubs/Dodgers NLCS game (He’s a huge Cubs fan) and to tell him that I enjoyed his appearance on the Howard Stern wrap-up show, before getting a handshake and thank you from a visibly tired Ron Swanson.
I know, 2.5 hours for a line for a popular celebrity isn’t something out of the ordinary. I’ve heard of people waiting way longer to meet J.K. Rowling, George R.R. Martin, or any other celebrity that decides to put out a book and go on tour. But usually, those kinds of events always seem to be held earlier in the day, usually weekends and often at a Barnes and Noble in New York City.
But when the clock pushed past 10 p.m. on a Wednesday night, where I still had a long drive to my house to make, a task I wanted to do the same night, and needing to get up at 6 a.m. so I could beat traffic and get to work by 7 a.m. so I didn’t have to slog through Atlanta rush and end up at work at 10 a.m., I was beginning to reconsider my decision-making, even if it meant not getting to meet Ron Swanson.
The old man hippie student/adjunct faculty member in front of me in line muttered on about sunk cost fallacy during the lengthy wait, and he’s entirely right. By the time many people were exasperated with the wait, they all felt that they had committed way too much time into the pursuit to pull out just yet. I fall for it way more often than I’d care to admit as well, but I’d paid money to meet a man and get a book signed, and my evening was already tanked, so might as well follow it through.
Although, had the book been pre-signed, I may have reconsidered. By Offerman’s own request, there were no photos allowed, and although I can respect and did adhere to said request, had I known that there would be zero chance at solidifying photographic evidence of having met Ron Swanson, I probably wouldn’t have gone. This is another thing I grew salty about, the ambiguity of the appearance’s details.
The bottom line is that despite my enjoyment of the actual talk, and the 2.5 seconds spent actually getting to speak with Nick Offerman, I’d say the entire evening was a sunk cost. It chewed up an entire evening in which I might have been more productive than sitting and waiting in a line, I didn’t get to eat dinner because I’m actively dieting again, and I’d rather eat nothing than garbage, and I still got hit by irrational Atlanta traffic, even at 10:45 p.m.
I left the appearance in a bad mood, got home in a bad mood, and went to bed in a bad mood. Never say never, but I can’t see myself getting excited much less wanting to indulge in another book signing experience, especially if it’s held by Acapella Books and on a work night evening. My time is way more valuable to me these days, and I have regrets with the choices I made, even if it meant not getting to meet Ron Swanson.
