I had an arch-nemesis yesterday....  

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Do normal people develop intense rivalries with perfect strangers? Here's what happened to me yesterday, while waiting to get my bloodwork done.

I'm sitting in the waiting area staring mindlessly into space. I see an older woman (mid 50's) come in and go to the reception desk of the hospital. She very rudley announces that she's here for her own bloodwork, and that she also has her husband's ____ (i think medication, but i'm not sure) in this paper bag. The recpetionist asks a series of standard questions, to which the womanly rudly answers each time with "it's all in the bag. yes of course, it's in the bag. like i said, everything you need is in the bag".

This woman thinks she's too good to have these questions asked of her. Apparently, the receptionist is unable to see this woman's innate greatness and ability to properly prepare. The woman clearly has everything under control. How dare this peon question her in such a mannor!

And then we get to question 5. "oh, i didn't know I needed that." Right then and there i wanted to go up to the woman and point out how foolish she should feel. After all her indignation, it turns out that she wasn't perfect. That she needed these questions to be asked of her. A little smirk creeped up on my face.

that smirk turned into a ear to ear grin when the woman struggled to find this mystery card. She went through her purse's rack of cards once....and then twice. Then she did it backwards. I could tell she was very stressed out, and when she looked at me, i didn't avert my eyes. I stared daggers through her. Finally, she had to take the rack out of her purse, dump all the cards out onto the table, and go through them one by one.

Victory was mine! or so i thought.

She wound up sitting behind me in the waiting area, and bumped into her pregnant friend. Her conversation was so whiny and grating that i had to assume she was doing it just to spite me. There was actually one part that was so akward that i had to squirm in my seat. She mentioned to the pregnant woman that her friend works as a private child care taker. The pregnant woman gave the standard "oh, i'll have to consider that" but the woman went on the offensive. I can't imagine being strongarmed into giving your child to a stranger, but this pregnant woman came very close. Very very awkward.

Then, the woman started complaining about how long we were waiting. Yes, we were waiting a long time, but hearing her whine about it was not making things better.

What we didn't know was that they were going to call us in as a group. My name gets called, and i stand up against the wall. She gets called a person or two later and joins the group. As the nurse is still calling other people this woman interupts her and asks "where do you want us to go?" Clearly, AFTER the entire group gets called up, we'll be given our final destination, but this woman just can't wait. As we start walking, she litterally bumps into an 80 year old man and she worms her way to the front of the pack.

I came very close to stating "make sure this woman goes first, she's clearly more important than the rest of us", but i didn't have any confidence that my audience would understand the irony of that comment (they were mainly old men). I felt like i had lost the war when she was given the first seat to the right, and i was the only person left standing w/o a seat.

But then a glorious thing happened. the woman in the seat all the way to the left was done and free to leave. I was given her seat. And then, the nurse started working her way down the row....left to right.

Yes, I was first, and she was last. After i was bandaged up, i made a point of thanking the nurse for being taking me so quickly while looking at the woman fuming in her seat all the way at the end.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 09, 2005 at Friday, September 09, 2005 . You can follow any responses to this entry through the comments feed .

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