Duh!

So, I get to the surgeon's office at 8.35am. (when I edit and add bits, the system seems to change the font to a bigger size. I don't mind it) I say to the nice girl behind the computer screen that I was Christian and I was there for an 8.30am appointment. She starts surveying her screen, looking and looking and looking again, and I think, Oh, Houston, (I, of course, don’t mean the NASA Mission Control Centre, I mean Whitney) it looks like we have a problem.

She looks at her screen and then relooks at her screen. She snatches a glimpse of me and then her eyes return to her screen.

Other patients are starting to gather behind me.

“What would your last name be,” she asks?

"Fletcher." She continues with the investigation of her screen.

“Then she looks up again. “We have you down for next Tuesday @ 8.30am.”

“Oh,” I say. I was sure I'd put it in my phone. I look down at the calendar on my phone which says it is next Tuesday at 8.30am. Duh!

“[name of doctor] has some free time around 9.15am, if you’d like to wait I am sure we can fit you in.”

“Does it matter if I am a week early?”

“Well, we do usually go for 5 week reviews.”

“Oh,” I say again.

“Would you like the appointment at 9.15am?”

“Um, oh, no, stupid me.” I smile. “I’ll come back next week.”

I wander back up the street, the quiet, earlyish morning street, there is something really nice about deserted morning streets. There is a gentleness to it, especially when you are wandering back aimlessly kind of wondering how you just did what you did?

There is a group of oldies excitedly taking their seats at a table out on the footpath.  I imagine them to be an anti dementia talking club who meet every Wednesday. Or, they all went on a Contiki tour to Europe 50 years ago and this is their annual get together. Maybe, they were a writing group who write crap fiction. Maybe, they throw their medications in the big bowl and then do lucky dips, washed down with brandy. A bondage group doing breakfast? 

Pass the amyl, I think. The mental image makes me smile.

I buy a raspberry muffin and hop back on the tram, trying not to say "idiot" to myself, even under my breath.