Two and a half hours to complete a hospital appointment. Add that to the fact that half an hour in I overheard one keelie nurse say to another at two o'clock 'that's us hauf an oor ahint, just seein the twinty past yin appointments noo!' despite the fact that she'd told us we'd be seen quickly because the clinic didn't open until half past one.
So I decide to leave the wife waiting and go to Morrisons so we'd make it back home for the boy coming in from school. I rush round getting what was needed and get to the checkout. The till operator was a dead ringer for Zelda from the Terrahawks and was busy having a chat with the woman she had just served, including pointing out where she could have got items on her receipt cheaper. Not content to be the ugliest woman this side of Saturn, she was also a mouth breather. Magnificent. By the time she was having the same chat with the next woman in the queue (who was a pensioner, more of her later) the guy behind me asked her politely if she could hurry up. She shot him a look like he was a doad of shite she'd just stood in and continued chatting. Initially I thought she was aiming the look at me, but she was actually cross-eyed so I assume I just got the lazy eye.
So, to the pensioner. Why is it that pensioners wait until the very moment they are asked for money at a till to stare into middle distance as though remembering their first ride in an air raid shelter in Saltcoats in 1940? This wizened old goat moved at a pace that would make an overfed snail blush, and by the time she'd fumbled around for her bag, unzipped it, fumbled again for her purse, opened it, examined every bank note like it was the first she'd ever set eyes on and actually handed over the cash, I was almost dry of the water that was dripping off me from the ice age that had just ended.
Next I'm returning to Crosshouse to pick up the wife. I come off the roundabout entering the hospital and the woman in a Renault in front of me stops at the exit of the roundabout, blocking the whole road. Just stops mind, not indicating or anything. So I'm sat behind her, almost blocking the whole roundabout. About two minutes pass (by which time there are cars behind me and traffic is at a standstill) and I'm on the verge of ramming the back end of her French pile of shite when I notice this geriatric with a stick that can barely walk waving at her. She waves back and I'm thinking 'surely not...?'
But yes. Yes indeed. The Renault woman had stopped the entire traffic flow at a major hospital to pick up her relative. The crucial point is: she was TWENTY YARDS from the turning into the designated pick up point, where there is a gigantic sign with the helpful words 'Pick Up Point' emblazoned upon, along with an equally helpful (if not more so!) arrow pointing towards the pick up point. TWENTY FUCKING YARDS!! To cap it all off with a steaming crown of dripping turds, the old woman had to come FROM THE PICK UP POINT out into the road to get in her rusty pile of stupidly-shaped Eurobanger.
I swear, one day I am going to go John Goodman in The Big Lebowski on one of these ignorant fucking underclass mouth-breathing scumballs. Let's see how smug you are about bringing traffic to a standstill when I'm banging the fucking panels of your Clampitt Crapmobile in with a fucking bat, cunto.
That was my Thursday afternoon.