We’ve all had to have one...a blood test that is, and it’s not as though they’re the most pleasant things on Earth to have to experience, but what makes it total agony is the wait. Our local pathology collection clinic opens on Saturday mornings from 9am until 12 noon. To be seen before 10am, you really have to have joined the queue outside the clinic door before 8.45am. I always get lulled into a false sense of security as I’m driving up the road towards the clinic, thinking “oh, I’ve got five minutes to spare, perfect” and then I see it...the “outside queue”, queuing up outside, waiting for the doors to open at 9am. This is usually filled with older people and my sympathy for them, having to do this regularly for health reasons is outweighed by my inner whinge that I’m already at least fifth in line.
The external door finally opens at 9am and we all enter the premises, trying to look as though we’re cool, calm and collected with our manners intact, when in reality we’re trying to walk as fast as physically possible without actually breaking into a run, to get the numbered ticket on the desk that will determine our place in the real queue. This can be the time when being the only person in the outside line who hasn’t had a hip replacement can be a bonus...but I always do the right thing and let those who were there before me go first (even though deep down I want to stab them all, as I do a quick head count and add up 5-10 minutes per person and realise I’m in for a long wait).
Our clinic has about 8 chairs to sit on and if you’re lucky enough to get a seat, don’t leave it for any reason. Dying to pee? Forget it...hold it in or you’ll lose your seat and have to stand. And just when you thought you were relatively safe with your number “6” card in your hand, thinking “6th in line isn’t that bad”...you sit and watch as person after person comes in for the 2 hour glucose tolerance test (for diabetes) and jumps the queue. Today I was in such a hurry and had already been waiting half an hour when the pathology lady called out “any more glucose tests?” and I swear if one more pregnant woman had have walked in the door at that point I was going to scream. All of a sudden, 6th place became 13th place as 7 people, yes 7 people went in before me to have the first of their 3 diabetes blood tests. I started lamenting the lack of exercise and poor food choices our society has made over the past few decades that has gotten us into this predicament...me having to be bumped out of 6th place at the pathology clinic!!!
The man sitting next to me this morning had the number 9 ticket. He turned it upside down at one point and I was thinking “oh no you don’t, old man....you and I both know that that’s a 9 and not a 6 so don’t even think about trying to fake your way in before me”...oh the paranoia in my mind. Then we had the people strolling in late (9.05am) who wanted to sweet talk their way ahead in the queue to the lady at the desk ...”um...I have to be out of here by 9.30am as I have to be someplace important...” Don’t you just want to bash these people? We’re ALL important. We’ve ALL got important stuff to do. Take a number, stand over there and next time come at 8.30am.
I don’t know what comes over me sometimes at these places. I am either Jekyl or Hyde. Either really relaxed, happy to read the 15 year old Women’s Weekly magazine featuring Nicole Kidman on the cover with long bright red curly hair and reading all about how she’s been dating Tom Cruise; happy to chat to the person next to me, “Oh, that green stuff is awful to drink, isn’t it?...Is this your first baby?....Yes, it has been really cold lately” OR I’m a psychotic mental case, intolerant of anything and everything. Today my mood was the latter and at one point the pathology lady was trying to fax the paperwork through to whoever they fax it through to and she had clearly typed in the wrong number as someone was answering the call and then hanging up. It took every ounce of my strength to not jump over that desk and fax it through myself. I’m surprised I didn’t offer to jab myself with the needle and collect the blood for her to save time. But despite my inner turmoil, I smiled at everyone, offered my seat to all the pregnant ladies and made polite chit chat with the staff as they went about their business.
When I stop and think about it, I’m so lucky to only have to go through this every now and then. I pity the person whose life is a constant stream of medical appointments and the inevitable queues that befall them. I figure if I hear a news story where they say, “a woman went crazy today, murdering everyone around them at a local pathology clinic” I’ll at some level understand where they were coming from.
