“This is fucking bullshit!” It’s not often one hears such language in a doctor’s waiting room, but the man sitting by the reception desk had clearly had enough from his perspective. When the nurse who was calling in patients came to the door, he pointed out that his appointment was for 8:45 and not 9:00.

”Okay,” she smiled. “We’re a little behind right now.”

”Well, when it gets to 9:00, I’m leaving,” he growled.

”Okay,” she repeated. “If you need to reschedule your appointment, you can certainly do that.”

He’d been mumbling to his wife since L and I had arrived, but by that point, she’d had enough. She got up and walked calmly out of the waiting room, clearly embarrassed with her husband’s outbursts.

When 9:00 arrived, I watched to see if he would go through with his threat, although I struggled to see much of a threat in it. He sat with his foot in a boot cast and had crutches by him: clearly, if someone was in need, it was he and not anyone working at the doctor’s office. At 9:05 he grabbed his crutches, banged them on the ground a few times in front of him, muttered, “This place! This place,” and crossed his legs over his crutches.

Five minutes later, a young man with a prosthetic leg to the knee entered and checked in with the receptionist. Our guy watched him, staring at his prosthetic, then banged his crutches together again.

When the nurse came back to call the next patient, he accosted her: “I’ve been here for an hour. I’m about ready to walk out of here.” To this, the nurse smiled again and said, “Okay.”

As the door closed, he said to no one in particular and therefore to everyone in the waiting room, “My appointment was for 8:45, not 9:15,” and after a few more moments, he muttered, “Okay,” and tried his best to storm out. It as kind of tough to rush out angrily on crutches, but he made a valiant effort.

I was certain that just after he left, the nurse would come call him, but instead, after five minutes, he hobbled back in and sat down in a different chair.

After a few more moments, the nurse called us back. “He’s going to be angry,” I laughed as we walked back, and on hearing that, our nurse mentioned to the others his behavior: “He’s making a scene in the lobby,” explained the smiling nurse to another before adding for my benefit, “He’s always like that.”

If he’d been my child, I’d have explained to him that no one was doing that to him intentionally, but realizing that the nurses put up with his behavior somewhat regularly, I realized it might very well have been intentionally, or at the least with some degree of satisfaction.

As we sat waiting for a technician to prepare the machine for L’s x-ray, the kind nurse brought our petulant hero back, indicating where he could wait for the x-ray technician.

”Great, now I can wait here three hours,” he grumbled.

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