Mormon Standard Time

Those of you that are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are no doubt familiar with the term "Mormon Standard Time." For those of you who aren't, Mormon Standard Time is related to terms like Eastern Standard Time or Mountain Standard Time. What it means is that no matter what time zone you happen to live in, whatever time you establish for a church meeting or activity to start, it will start at least ten minutes late because no one will arrive until 10 minutes after the appointed time. Mormons just tend to be at least ten minutes late to everything. I'm sure if we studied it we could come up with some complicated algorithm to describe the relationship between how many children a family has to how many minutes late that family is. So it's kind of a joke among members of the church.

Now that I've moved to Utah, I've discovered that it's not a joke--it's reality. And it really should be called "Utah Mormon Standard Time" because none of our church meetings started 10 minutes late in Arizona. We had to leave at least half and hour before church started there if we wanted to have even a prayer of getting a seat on one of the soft padded pews in the chapel--and church was only a five-minute drive there. Even when we left so early, Niles would drop me off by the front doors and send me in to safe a spot while he parked, unloaded, and herded the slow kids from the car into the church. Now we can leave our house ten minutes early and walk to church and have no worries about getting a soft seat. (This is important to me because I can't hear in the back, not to mention that I don't enjoy the hard folding chairs.) Once we arrived ten minutes early for church here in Utah and the chapel was deserted.

The hilarious thing about living in Utah County, where the population is approximately 90% Mormon, is that Mormon Standard Time is in effect for more than just church functions. I have observed it in action while taking my children to school as well. If I arrive at the drop-off ten minutes before the late bell rings, there is no one in sight. It appears that school is not in session that day. If I am running a little late, and arrive five minutes before the late bell rings, there will be a few people around. But if I am running really late that morning and arrive two minutes after the late bell rings, I am stuck in a line of cars. But no worries, my kids aren't going to be marked tardy. The school sent home a note at the beginning of the year encouraging parents to get their children to school on time. They stated that tardies were a bit of a problem at the school. Then they said that if your child was more than ten minutes late they would be marked tardy. More than ten minutes? There you go--Mormon Standard Time! In the Peoria Arizona Unified School District children are marked tardy if they are one millisecond late. I am not kidding--as in ALL parts of your body must be completely inside the school building before the late bells BEGINS to ring or you are tardy. And once you are tardy five times you start to face disciplinary action. In Arizona you got stuck in the line of cars at 20 minutes before the bell rang. If you came at 5 minutes before, you didn't have much trouble since 99% of the kids had arrived 15 minutes earlier. So it's a different world here--but I don't mind the more relaxed attitude toward tardiness. We all need a little bit less stress in the mornings.