I‘m talking to a friend outside at our church‘s barbeque. Her little daughter keeps coming up and gently interrupting. “You have a lot of patience,” I tell my friend.

“Oh no. Oh no, I don‘t,” she says. “I have no patience. No, really. I‘m bad.”

I don‘t know her well enough to argue, so we return to our previous conversation. “So how many marathons have you run?”

“Two with a torn ACL,” she says. “And I did four triathlons with no cartilage in my left knee. Triathlons are my thing.”

It’s only later that I put these two together. If triathlons are my friend’s thing, how can she say she has no patience? What better proof of patience is there than a triathlon?

Charlie and I almost brag about our lack of patience. Yet both of us like nothing more than a good long run. We’ve both run marathons. All our non-runner friends say, “How do you run for so long? I could never do that. I don’t have the patience.”

“Do you think I have patience?” I ask Charlie.

“Oh yeah,” he says. “The biggest example to show you have patience is that I used your kitchen curtains as drop cloths. That’s patience.”

“That’s not patience, that’s sacrifice.”

“Not when it comes to dealing with me,” Charlie says. “You need patience and sacrifice when it comes to living with me.”

“There are so many times you could have been mad at me for good reasons. Most of the time you get mad at me for no reason.”

“Just kidding. I think about some of the things I do and I think, ‘She’s going to get so mad at me.’ When you find out, you don’t care at all. Then if I don’t have a plan for the day, you go ballistic.”

“I’m kidding. I’d give you more examples, but you don’t know about them. We’ll see how much patience you have when you find out.”

I know I don’t have patience with other people’s kids from years of teaching Tae Kwon Do. Often during class, especially while supervising full contact, I had to fake patience. I smiled, counted to ten, smiled, bit my tongue, smiled again, and eventually prayed until someone hopefully got injured and I’d have something different to do.

The worst is when you call someone and their kid answers the phone. I can’t hang up fast enough. Neither can Charlie. This is a bond we share, so it’s a good thing we’re together. We’d drive someone else with our impatience.

“Other people’s kids test my patience,” Charlie says, “because I’m too old to care about what they’re saying. I can’t remember what it was like for me even a couple of years ago. How can I remember what was interesting to me when I was ten? I’d pay attention if they wouldn’t say dumb stuff.”

I called my sister today and one of her daughters answered. I was all ready to say, “The house is on fire! Gotta go!” and hang up. Soon, however, I forgot she was a kid and therefore supposed to be pushing my patience. I learned a lot of interesting things about my sister, particularly about her cleaning habits.

I learned more from my little niece than if I’d had a hidden camera. It was even better because it was from her perspective. She was home alone, being grounded for not cleaning her room. Her perspective today was particularly interesting.

The General, Cheyenneh, came by with one of her old friends. This friend hadn’t been over since Cheyenneh had her sixth grade graduation sleepover party here three years ago. “Is this the same house?” the friend asked.

“Yeah, but downstairs, where we had our sleepover, now has a new foundation but no walls,” the General says. “We don’t even go down there anymore.”

“It looked, uh, it was a lot nicer then,” the General’s friend says.

“You have to get ugly before things look better,” I say. “Ask anyone who’s had plastic surgery.”

“We’re going to her house,” Cheyenneh says. “And we’re staying as long as possible. They don’t have big saws in their living room.”

She says this like it’s a good thing. The big saws in the living room are proof we’re getting work done on the house. Cheyenneh, however, makes anyone look patient. She doesn’t say “Good Morning,” when she wakes up, she walks downstairs and says, “Why isn’t this done yet?”

“Since we’re fixing up this house,” I say to Charlie, “we must have some patience, right?”

“One way to have patience,” he says, “is to not give a sh*t. If you find yourself getting impatient, try not giving a sh*t. Patience is a lot easier when you don’t care.”

It’s a good thing he didn’t share this opinion at the church barbeque. I wouldn’t have had the patience for that.