This morning, I took myself to breakfast at Guns and Bagels and Co. A woman ambled in and sat on the counter stool next to me. She took out her cell phone, and made a call. She also ordered her breakfast (and four slices of sable to go, for her mother's lunch). She says she never knows what to make her mother for lunch.
There's no way I could have helped overhearing. It was 8:30, and she was calling her doctor's office. The conversation sounded like the kind you have with the office, not the answering service. She wanted to cancel her appointment for today.
The reason she gave (it sounded like they must have asked) was what she called a "family emergency." She then talked some more, and seemed to be scheduling an alternate appointment.
The conversation I imagined was this:
Receptionist: I hope everything is OK. It sounds noisy where you are.
Patient: I'm at a restaurant having breakfast.
Rec: I thought you said you had a family emergency.
Pat: Yes, but that's not scheduled until later.
She then made some other calls, to what sounded either like friends or other family members. There was no mention of a family emergency, and no urgency in the calls. The waitress was talking to her about how she would be spending the rest of her day. Again, no mention of a family emergency.
I guess it was gesture enough that she didn't tell the doctor's office she simply wasn't in the mood to have an appointment, or that she had better things to do with her time. It was too bad, though, that she was wasting the doctor's time, and maybe depriving someone else of an appointment they could have had today (Friday). Maybe the office can call one of the people who might have been put off until Monday, to let them know there's now an opening today. I hope so. With things to be done, it seems so disrespectful, and arrogant, to treat other people and their time and agendas this way.
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