Waiting

Cross-posted at flitting.org

That was what yesterday was all about ....waiting.

Had a doctor's appointment at 1:45. Got there at 1:45... or within a minute or two, anyway.

At 2:30 or thereabouts, I checked to make sure my file had not been misplaced. "No, she picked it up" (She = the nurse).

Finally at 2:45 exactly, she came and called me. I commented on the length of the wait - she said "Your appointment was for 2:45; I called you at 2:45"

Yeah - that would be great - except my appointment was for 1:45.

No it wasn't.

Well, that's what they told me.

No it - oh - you're right. Oops.

*sigh* Would it have killed her to have added a "sorry"?  Apparently.

Anyway - from there I went downstairs to the post office in the pharmacy. No one there - great.

Go to side counter to add my forms to the envelope and add my return address to it. Damn! While I had been doing that, 3 people had showed up - the first of them a woman who had a huge stack of Christmas cards for which she needed stamps.

Apparently, she didn't think to bother to sort them by location. She had 46 for Canadian address, 7 for the US and 4 for overseas. ARGH!

THEN we headed down to the OHIP (Ontario Health Insurance Program) office to do my name change. Cool - only 1 person ahead of me.

Of course, she just happens to be someone who was obviously suffering from a mental illness. She has her knickers in a knot because her OHIP card is in her maiden name not her married name. She is not married any more, and doesn't have ID in her married name or a marriage certificate or anything, but she is SO not leaving until her name on her card is changed because someone told her she had used the wrong name and now she is totally bent because she did something WRONG OH MY GOD!

I used to work with people like her in a previous life.... I recognized her - not HER specifically - but her... but hey ... there are 2 clerks and she is only going to use one, right?

And she is number 147 and I am 148 and the person at the other clerk was there even before I got there - so how long can this take?

Would you believe an hour?

Because they have this way cool system, you see. If you have a visible disability, they bump you to the front of the line. So buddy in the way cool electric wheelchair that can sit up, lean left, right, or all the way back so that the coat that is hanging on the back lands on the floor (they didn't have those when I worked at Woodeden Camp) gets to go first, and I'm fine with that.

But he doesn't like the picture she takes of him, so she has to do another and then he wants the first one but she can't go back so ...

15 minutes for him ... okay ... 15 minutes isn't bad right?

He leaves - and the screen that was showing 147 on it changes. Would it be too much to expect that it should change to 148? Really?

Yes, really.

It changes to read E7. Security guard dude explains that people with appointments get to go first, and those people who have been trickling in since I got there had appointments. Oh geez. How MANY of them have appointments? He doesn't know. Yay.

Anxiety lady is still going on and on about needing her name changed and clerk is trying to explain that she can't do that without ID but finally gives up and decides to do it any way. Many forms to fill out and sign and of course AL can't be expected to do them on her own so ...

Finally the smart people who had appointments (who knew you could make appointments? Not I - but we will certainly do so when they finally get around to taking Ross' oh so purdy red and white old style health card away from him  - anyway, those people finish up and ... and.... and...

WHERE THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU ARE GOING?

Now we know why they need a security guard in the OHIP office, if there was ever any doubt.

FINALLY she comes back from wherever the hell she went and pushes a button and WOO HOO it is my turn.

Oh crap - a new picture ... I hate that - have I brushed my hair this week? Hey, come on, give me a break, ok? One arm is broken and the other is sprained and brushing hurts. Can't have looked TOO bad, or Ross would have offered to brush it for me, right? We'll see when the card comes in the mail, I guess.

Anyway ... finally out of there.

On to go to his kid's house to deal with her critter problem and have dinner - surely the WAITING theme is finished now, right? RIGHT?

*SIGH*

Somehow I managed to find myself waiting there too. Waiting for them to decide where to put the mouse poison so that the kids and cats wouldn't find it. Waiting for the cute ones - my grandbabies to come home with their daddy so we can have dinner. Waiting. Ross and kid are like totally ignoring me.

TV is off and I don't feel comfortable turning it on. Laptop on table, and another on the counter behind me, but no one offers, and I don't feel comfortable....   so I sit at the kitchen table and wait. Oh good - now they're going to move furniture.

I'm bored - and haven't had a smoke in like 5 fricken hours now - damn rental car! So I go outside to have one.

Guess where they park the furniture?

Right in front of the GD front door so that I cannot get back into the house when I am done.

I could, I suppose, have rang the doorbell - but surely they will realize what they've done and move it...

or not.

Dammit, it's cold outside. Fine. Be that way then.

I went and opened the box from my sister, which we'd picked up at the post  office on our way out of town so many hours ago, and picked a likely looking book and just sat in the car and read. At least I could READ out there. And so I did - until the food we had ordered for dinner showed up. Figured they'd move the stoopid wall unit from in front of the front door for HIM.

And so they did.

And then they thought it was funny to crack jokes about how many cigarettes I must have had out there.

One actually. Too flipping cold for more than that. But you guys locked me out, so I went and sat in the car.

We didn't mean to lock you out. You could have come in the garage door.

Yeah - the big garage door - you know ... the sort with a handle you turn and then pull up on - with which buggered up hand would they have liked me to do that?

Oh ... yeah... right.

Did someone ban the word sorry from the lexicon while I wasn't looking?

Well.....?

Come on....?

I'm waiting!