Why "wait" is used instead of "have waited"?

Question

Why wait is used in the following text instead of have waited?

Ben: Aw, I can’t believe it. I wait all school year to go on this trip, and now the queen of cooties is along for the ride.

Gwen: Hey, I had my own vacation already all planned out, too, you know. (pulls out her schedule) Each activity is color-coded so I never do the same thing two days in a row. Now, I’m stuck with my geekazoid cousin going camping for three months.

Excerpt from And Then There Were Alternate 10 (a Ben 10 fan fiction)

Answer 1

You could use have waited, and it would be grammatically correct. But in this case, the dialogue is in between two cousins and is informal, so it would sound unnatural if Ben were to use 'have waited'. It makes more sense if you think about it as a colloquial dialogue because that is how we speak on a day-to-day basis. Hope this helps.