First The Parking Lot Rage, Now The Waiting Room Rage

Actually, my waiting room rage occurred on Monday, but I'm writing about it after the parking lot rage.

Monday, I had a regular 6-month checkup with my doctor nurse practitioner. He's okay, but I haven't cottoned to him like my old doctor, who was ex-military, and a straight-shooter. This nurse practitioner isn't much of a shooter at all. He just exchanges pleasantries, glosses over my concerns, and I'm out of there, with him $35 richer from my copay. Which is not to say I dislike him. He's likeable enough. As Obama once said about Hillary on 60 Minutes.

Anyhoo...my waiting room rage had nothing to do with my doctor nurse practitioner, and everything to do with his staff. My appointment was for 8:45. I got a phone call telling me to arrive 15 minutes early to update paperwork. It takes me 45 minutes to get there. I left in plenty of time. Even with only one of the two elevators working, I got to the reception area at 8:25. I stood at the little counter, waiting for one of the two gals behind the sliding glass to wait on me. It's not like they had a bell to ding, like the dead-mouse-smelling post office.

The glass window is not opaque, like the one at my old dentist where the receptionist embezzled money and got fired and arrested. Clear glass. I could see them. So I know they could see me. Even though they were not facing the glass, but working on computers at a right angle to the glass, I knew they could pick up my movement with their peripheral vision. That's how eyes work, you know. I waited politely. Waited a little less politely. Got downright fed up. And left.

That's right. I went back to the one elevator (they had built a little closety thing around the door of the other one to keep people from falling down the shaft) and took a ride upstairs to the 4th floor. That's where my old doctor's office was. He's not there now, but working down the street at the veteran's center. But I knew there was a restroom on that floor by the elevators. So I went in and did my business and sent a text or two to my best ol' ex-teaching buddy Mabel. Sorry, Mabel, if you're learning that detail here. It's quiet on the toilet, with subdued lighting, and no sick people around you.

I'll be gosh darned if I was going to get to that appointment ONE MINUTE before my scheduled time! At 8:45, I took the elevator back down to the 2nd floor, and the worker opened that glass window right up. Since I only have one insurance now, I have a co-pay. Normally, I would write out a check for it. But just to make their life harder, I asked to use my debit card. Which meant that the receptionist had to do the work, not me, because they didn't have a slidey thing for me to swipe it.

I didn't even wait 5 minutes before I was called back. It probably won't surprise you to hear that my blood pressure was up. Although my doctor nurse practitioner attributed it to the fact that I had not yet taken my two pills for the day...I think it might have had something to do with my waiting room rage.