On Being a Piece of Fuzz

A year ago I made an appointment. It's not an appointment I love, even though it means I get to see the people that I associate with the birth of my children, but I made that appointment anyway. I know I made it because I do the same thing every single year. I stand at their little window with the thin pink sheet of paper with all the obsolete lines and acronyms on it, waiting to hand over my co-pay, and the girl behind the little window taps on her keyboard and looks at her screen and says, next year, January 16, 11:15? And because this is the only appointment I schedule ONE YEAR in advance, I assume there is nothing else yet on my calendar at that time so I say, as if I've thought about it and determined myself to be free one year from now, sure, yes, next year at 11:15 will be great. And then I go back to work and open my trusty Outlook calendar and click on one year from today at 11:15 and type "the appointment you don't love even though you get to see the people you associate with the birth of your kids." I'm responsible that way; I record my appointments in advance, so I don't forget them.

Today the people I don't love even though I associate them with the birth of my children came very close to experiencing my Wrath. If I hadn't already expended a good portion of my Wrath in the first parking garage as my breath billowed out in the freezing cold air, SIGH, HEAVE, HO, SIGH, ARRRRGH, kicking broken sheets of ice out of my way as I returned to my car after reading the sign that said, cheerily, something like "We've moved! Our new offices are not in this building, and there is no way to GET THERE from this building, so have fun driving to the other parking garage," I would have had some Wrath left over. As it stood, and luckily for the receptionist at the new, professionally-designed, designer chair-lined, wavy-walled, pretend-you're-going-to-the-spa-and-aren't-these-miniature-shiny-lavender-tiles-lovely?-themed doctor's office, when she failed to lift her eyes from the computer screen and asked me my name three times, all I had left was Desperate Disdain; the Wrath was basically dead by then. Clickety click click click, "I don't have you in here for an appointment."

"I made the appointment a year ago. The only reason I even knew about it was because it was on my calendar, from A YEAR AGO."

Clickety click click click, "I don't have you in here. I see you in here for last year, but there's no appointment for this year."

"Well there WAS an appointment, because I MADE the appointment, the same way I've been doing it for the past six years, which means I walked out with your computer-generated appointment card and subsequently put it on my calendar."

Clickety click click click, "I don't have you in here. And he's not here right now, he's in surgery."

"......"

Clickety click click click, "And he doesn't have anything the rest of the day."

"Huh. Well you know, I just went through about seven levels of hell to get here this morning. So. You know. This is really frustrating."

Clickety click click click, "He doesn't have anything until Friday."

"......"

Clickety click click click.

"......"

Clickety click click click.

"What. Time. On. Friday."

"1:00. Here's your appointment card. I'm very sorry about that."

Yes, yes, she was very sorry! Kind of like how I feel sorry for the fuzz balls when I yank them off my old sweaters. I mean, did I say I felt sorry for the fuzz balls? No. That's not what I meant. For me, for me! Sorry for me! Because it's such a colossal waste of my time pulling off all that fuzz. Stupid annoying fuzz. I'm very sorry about that!