We all know what it's like. You get home from work, run a few errands on the way, or pick up the kids from school (only to drive them to whatever practice or play-date they have later), make or buy dinner, clean the dishes, help the kids with homework/showers, put them to bed, remember to take the laundry out of the drier, and just as you close your eyes you remember to say the first words to your spouse as you utter a sleepy good night. Or any variation of a hectic life thereof that leaves you with very little free time.

How much would you pay, then, to have more free time? For quicker services? For no lines? How much would you pay just to feel you can take a breather? The national deficit of free time has turned us into an impatient bunch. We simply don't like anything that wastes time and adds to our "busy signal."

Well apparently, and not at all what I had expected, Texans seem to be the most impatient of Americans as three of Texas' cities finished in the top five of the Most Impatient Cities in America study. Austin, Texas took the lead. Indianapolis came in second, third was Houston, San Francisco in fourth place, and finally Dallas tied with Jacksonville and Baltimore for fifth place. Surprisingly, Los Angeles ranked 17th and New York 19th.

How does one define impatience?

Today eBay officially announced its much-anticipated new service, eBay Express (read the release). From what I can tell (I haven't tried it yet myself), it is essentially a separate site for customers who are looking for new stuff and not only want to skip the auction process, but want to buy from several different sellers all at once. Only "qualified eBay merchants" are allowed to sell from the site. That should provide users some assurance that what they buy will actually arrive and be in the condition they expect.

Bill Cobb, president of eBay North America, explained the goal pretty clearly in the release, "eBay Express is for buyers who prefer a more conventional online shopping experience," he said. "We think eBay Express will attract new buyers to eBay and inspire existing buyers to use eBay even more."

I think eBay Express is a good idea and I plan to use it (I'll write about my experience here). But for investors, I want to point out that this is a major new step in eBay's evolution of becoming an e-commerce retailer -- not an auction site.

Here are some quick observations on the significance:

Bob Swan is the new chief financial officer of eBay. Only 30 days into the job he had the daunting task of presenting his first earnings release and running a gauntlet of analyst questions.

He did a great job, but his caution on the call came across as real worry. He (with some help from Meg), was happy to list all the risks to eBay's forecast one he was pressured about why he didn't raise guidance. Here's what he's worried about:

- EBay is getting more seasonal with age -- like regular retailers -- so its Q2 and Q3 could be worse than expected.

- The company allowed stores to list more stuff, which deluged customers with listings when they did searches. Customers bought less. That's why total merchandise sales grew 18% in the quarter but listings grew 33%. That move has been rolled back in Canada and the U.S., but its impact still needs monitoring.

It's always fun to listen to a company's live earnings call (I really recommend it!) and then read the press reports the next day and see what actually gets reported.

Here's one of the biggest disconnects for me when it comes to eBay: Almost all the wire reports still refer to eBay as an auction site. But management hammered home the point again and again that it is an e-commerce site.

In fact Meg Whitman and the CFO only mentioned the auction format when discussing ways in which eBay is increasingly moving to a fixed price format with stores and, coming next week, "eBay Express."

At the end of Q1, eBay had 486,000 stores, including 247,000 in the U.S., making it, "the largest global provider of store fronts in the U.S.," according to Whitman. Fixed-price trading accounted for 34% of all merchandise sold.

And the online marketplace, as it calls it, is just one part of its business. It also has PayPal (payments) and Skype (communications)

eBay is still primarily an auctioneer -- but for how much longer?