I waited. She’d no idea how much I’d rushed to get there ten minutes early; how I’d dragged Millie around on her ‘stop, sniff, pee pee’ morning stroll, shouted at her for showing me contempt when it was time to kick our heals and head for home, in the rain; nor did she have a clue about my two flattish tyres that would sink to the ground when I sat on my e-bike with a drained battery; or having to haul everything out of the shed with me screaming ‘where’s the bloody pump’ rather too loudly; nor the rain, did I mention the rain.
I quickly wrapped Millie in a warm absorbent towel leaving her jutting out an exasperated chin. She cared less for my rush and raised an eyebrow before sighing. Hauling waterproof trousers up and over all other day wear and wrapping myself in an impregnable cagoule, I snapped my chin into the buckle of my cycle helmet, grabbed my keys and sped off at turbo pace.
Goodness knows what I looked like as cars swerved to the road side, drivers gesturing as I mounted pavements, skirted around St Catherine’s corner, apologised to a blur on a zimmer and arrived at Kingswood Surgery looking like a soggy blue mushroom.
To save time I went straight to the checking in monitor which decided to do its weekly update when I touched its face. Turning to the receptionist I saw the man with zimmer at the back of the queue.
‘Patience!’ I kept repeating like a daily mantra. ‘Patience!’
Approaching a perspex wrapped receptionist, I quickly gave my name and details. Hearing none of it behind her plastic shield, and continuing to stare at her monitor, I repeated them very slowly like ‘I’ was dumb. I waited for her to reply as the screen lingered in its update.
‘Upstairs,’ she said. I didn’t hear the rest for I was already through the door on the right.
Made it! I had ten minutes to spare so I fumbled for my phone through layers of wet canvas. Completing today’s Wordle in three, I smiled at the irony; ’groan’ it foretold.
Folk arrived, including Mr Zimmer-Frame and a young woman covered in a soggy hoody. They soon disappeared so I checked my emails, the usual junk that keeps appearing no matter how many times I unsubscribe.
Patience! Patience! Patience! I repeated as time takes me ten minutes passed my appointment. Other folk came in and filled the spaced out seats. It was hard to smile at them through an obligatory covid mask, but I nodded letting them know that I was next. When they all trundled in before me I decided it was time for action. I accosted the first health care professional who’d just made two cups of coffee; ‘scuse me’ I emphasised the ‘scu’ in a loud, high drilling sound that penetrated her relaxed features.
‘Oh! I am sorry you’ve been waiting thirty minute,’ she said and went off with her two mugs to check her monitor.
At this point its now forty minutes after my allotted time and I am the only one left in the aptly named ‘waiting’ room. I am no longer dripping rain drops on their polished floor, I am dry but for the puddle I’m sitting in.
A dark haired school girl appeared and called my name. Rustling as I stood up I asked, ‘what time was my appointment?’ emphasising with annoyance the past tense. She blushed, said another sorry and invited me into her torture chamber.
Patience! Be nice! Remember she is the one with the needles! My mantra rolled off me like the beads of rain and I snapped. I wanted to say, ‘you’ve no idea how I tried to kill Millie and myself getting here for a ridiculously early time that you forgot because of your coffee break.’ But instead I simply barked, ‘I’m here for my annual check up’. I plonked my urine sample on her desk. Fortunately the lid was tight because it toppled over next to her coffee.
This lass, seeing she had got the wrong end of a cow sitting next to her peeling off layers of impenetrable armour, looked like she was about to burst into tears.
Patience! Patience!
As my mantra softened my eyes, I turned to see a Swedish built shot putter stride into the room in dark blue, sit down and stare. ‘Maria is having a bad day’, she said shooting syllables like bullets.
‘Oh’, I nodded. ‘Not only her’, I didn’t add.
‘Yes. the technology is causing problems for you, isn’t it Maria?’
‘Not just her’, I thought remembering the weekly update downstairs.
Then the blue Swede said she was training Maria to be a qualified nurse’s assistant.
‘Oh,’ I silently groaned and sat very still as the needle went in and searched for a vein.
And I kept very quiet as I cycled home with one arm, only to find Millie still wrapped in her fluffy green towel, patiently waiting.
‘Groan!’ indeed.