02 March, 2012

tight pants

The lady glared from her waiting seat. She was late by 45minutes and I had been finishing up some business before calling her into the consulting room, making her wait maybe 5 minutes. I wasn't sure, because I was rushing to get around to her and didn't even stop to have a look at the clock. She wore a loose tunic and very tight tights that cut into the flesh about the knees, causing the skin to bulge out like an extra appendage.

"You made me wait," she spat, a little spray of saliva landing in my eye. Tapping her wrist, she said, "Do you know what time it is?"

"I'm sorry," I said, trying not to take an obvious breath and wipe the spit off my face, "but you were late and I was trying to get something I'd started finished before calling you in. Just come right this way."

"I was late? So? You people sit on your arses all day doing nothing. I have sore legs and have to walk all the way across the road from the car park to get here."

"I'm sorry, ma'am," The distance from the car park across the road to the clinic was maybe 30 metres away. I really didn't want to show her into the room now, but gestured for her to go in and take a seat anyway, "but I wouldn't count seeing 18 patients a day as nothing. Now, you've said you have sore legs. Is that the reason you wanted to see me today?"

"No," she sneered. "I came because I had nothing else to do, but to hobble around and wait for you. I have multiple medical problems, but you people can never seem to do anything about them."

"There's a lot we don't know about the body yet. In any case, would you like to describe your problems for me to see if I can help you then?"

"What I need," the lady declared, sniffing and wiping her nose on the back of her hand, which was then wiped upon the chair she was sitting on, "is a massage right now. One that will last at least 2 hours and loosen up all the tight muscles from here to here," she indicated from the base of her neck to her feet. "Shall I take my clothes off now?"

"The maximum time one of these appointments can go for is half an hour and I am a doctor, not a masseur." I was beginning to feel somewhat irked and was starting to feel my hands itch with the need to slap her as if she were a rude child. "Why don't you describe your problems for me and then I will have a better idea of how I can help you?"

She talked about her multiple medical conditions from top to toe in a high, indignant voice, stating more than once that the government owed her a massage at least once a fortnight. Why the government owed her anything at all, I could not work out, as she had never had a job before in her entire life. She concluded with, "... all I really have is knee pain and if you refuse to give me a massage, then what use are you?"

And with that she flounced out of the consulting room, declaring loudly to the other patients in the waiting room that they were wasting their time in seeing me. I watched her go with a sigh of relief, hoping I would never have to see her again. One of my other patients, a regular with terminal cancer, chortled from her corner where she was steadily knitting.

"Maybe if she weren't wearing such tight pants she wouldn't be such a tight arse today."

I tended to agree.

(Please note that the characters in this story are entirely fictional and any resemblance they may bear to anyone in real life are entirely coincidental.)

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