Hick drove me to my doctor appointment on Thursday. He drops me off at the door of the clinic, then parks and comes inside to wait with me. That way I don't have a long walk. I stopped by the bathroom first, then got in line at the counter to check in.
There are three windows (actually just slots in the counter) to check in. Only the middle gal was working. I was fourth in line. Hick came by and said he'd get our seats. I like the one on the end of the first row. It's the closest to the door where they call the patients back. I'm so slow getting up and moving that it doesn't seem fair to sit farther away and make the staff wait on my seemingly endless journey.
The gal at the far end called one of the line-waiters over. Another one finished up. And I was next, after a man who was helping a woman in a wheelchair check in. I got my turn once they wheeled off. I'd already done the online check-in on YourChart, so mainly I just had to verify my name, address, and phone number.
I turned to walk over to Hick, and saw that MY SEAT WAS TAKEN BY THE WHEELCHAIR MAN! What in the Not-Heaven, Hick! You had ONE JOB! Well. Two. To drive me there and back, and to save my seat. Now he had let a stranger sit there, and I was forced to sit on Hick's other side. In the third chair, not the first.
My nose was a bit out of joint when I sat down. Hick was animatedly talking to the stranger, who was not strange to him, but a former schoolmate. They went on and on about people they knew. About their treasures that they have accumulated from auctions and flea markets. Wheelchair Man had just bought a toy pinball machine for $15. Hick was commenting that I had one like it as a child, trying to draw me into the conversation.
I was polite, but inside I was steaming. Not just because Hick had given away my seat, but because Wheelchair Man had parked the woman (his wife, it turns out) in the wheelchair facing away from everything! She was at the end of the row, facing a wall that had a sealed window into the pharmacy area where I rarely see any people. Every now and then she would make a comment to join the conversation. But it had to be said over her shoulder, since she was facing away from us.
That figures. This ol' boy was just like Hick. Not really thinking about his wife to include her in the interaction. I was fuming. I held my tongue. I didn't want to say anything directly to Wheelchair Man. But I guarantee Hick was going to get a piece of my mind later, about the way that guy treated his wife.
After 15 minutes, a nurse called for Wheelchair Wife from a door down at the other end, where I go for labs. Wheelchair Man got up and said goodbye to Hick. He spun Wheelchair Wife around and pushed her all the way across the front row. I turned to Hick, to give him a roasting over Wheelchair Man's oafish behavior in parking his wife facing away from everything, and Hick beat me to speaking. With a nod of his head towards their backs, he said:
"His wife is blind."
Oh. Well. Um. Good thing I hadn't said anything!
"Oh, no! I was just going to yell at you for that guy parking his wife where she couldn't see anything! But turns out it didn't matter, because she couldn't see anything!"
I don't know why, but this whole situation reminded me of one of my favorite scenes in Silkwood. When Kurt Russell comments on Cher's makeup, done by her girlfriend Diana Scarwid. He makes fun of how obvious it is, and how the girlfriend (Angela) is not a very good beautician. Then Meryl Streep tells him it's not nice to make fun of what a person does for a living. Kurt Russell says, "If that's what a beautician does, I'll take mine rare." Then Meryl Streep tells him that Angela works at the funeral home.
