HARLOW JUNCTION — The Harlow Junction City Council voted 5–0 Tuesday to grant honorary citizenship to Dale Pruitt, a man who has reportedly been “five minutes away” from a friend’s housewarming party since the fall of 2019, in a ceremony held on the shoulder of County Road 12.

“Dale has been with us through four mayors, a repaving, and the closure of the Dairy Barn,” said Council Chair Marguerite Oyelaran-Finch. “At some point, you have to admit someone lives here.”

Pruitt, who first texted “omw, five mins” at 7:42 p.m. on October 12, 2019, accepted a ceremonial key to the road, a commemorative parking permit, and a laminated map with a small star placed roughly in the middle of nowhere.

“I’m just really humbled,” said Pruitt, speaking by phone from what he described as “literally the next left.” “Tell everyone I’m almost there.”

Records show Pruitt has passed through the town’s only stoplight an estimated 11,000 times, usually while stating that he is “just grabbing ice.” Local officials say he has since paid property taxes on a small gravel pull-off, which he has maintained out of what he calls “a sense of duty and also my GPS being weird.”

The housewarming’s host, Brent Kowalczyk, confirmed that the party has long since ended but said he “still keeps a plate in the oven.”

“I haven’t been mad since 2020,” Kowalczyk said. “Honestly, I wouldn’t know what to do if he showed up. I’d probably have to move.”

Experts say Pruitt’s situation, while rare, is not unprecedented. Dr. Ignatius Bellweather-Voss, a senior fellow in Approximate Arrival Studies at the Lower Midlands Institute for Distance Estimation, said the phenomenon is well documented.

“Five minutes is not a unit of time so much as a mood,” Bellweather-Voss said. “Mr. Pruitt has simply committed to the mood with a rigor that we rarely see outside of contractors.”

“Five minutes is not a unit of time so much as a mood.”

Under the terms of the citizenship, Pruitt will be entitled to vote in municipal elections, use the town’s compost drop-off, and receive a 10 percent discount at the Harlow Junction Tire & Muffler, provided he actually stops there. He will also be assigned a parking space on the road itself, which council members acknowledged is “mostly symbolic, as he has never once parked.”

Not everyone welcomed the decision. Residents of neighboring Pell’s Crossing, where Pruitt has also been “ten minutes out” for a baby shower since March, said they felt blindsided.

“He told us he was one of us,” said Pell’s Crossing resident Joanne Tuttle-Ramaswamy. “We even saved him a seat.”

At press time, Pruitt had left the ceremony to head toward the party, telling reporters he would “be there in five,” and requesting that the council “start without him.”