saturday whinge

Yesterday evening, just as I was arriving home from the shrink's, a passing car pulled up quickly in front of me as I was about to cross the road, and came to a halt squarely in the middle of the road. It was one of my patients who lives nearby.

"Hiya, doc. How are ya you doing? Look, there was something I just wanted to ask you"

I gestured both ways, indicating that traffic had now, fairly patiently as it happened, built up in both directions.
"I'll pull in over here", she said and sped over to a parking place just up the road.
I joined her at the kerbside and leaned over to her window.
"So, what's up?"
"Well it's about me HRT. I was wondering--"
At this point I shrugged my shoulders, raised my hands out wide on both sides, palms upward, and then let out a sound out like this:
"Phmeh"
She started again, but a little more quickly this time, I repeated the gesture.
"Oh, and wait, I think I might have got something in my eye"
I was on this one in a flash.
"Phmeh"
"What's the problem, doc? It's just people talking in the street"
"No it isn't" I replied, and walked away. Then I sensed she was watching me to see which house I was going to enter, so I walked down the street the wrong way until I could see that she had gone.

I thought this a quite shamelessly cynical encroachment on my privacy. And I think my (very justifiable) show of disdain was another example in a growing trend as I approach my retirement. Lately, I have told one or two people more or less what I think of them, so I should be careful to show some restraint, even at this late stage. This is risk taking behaviour, a little step more and it becomes reckless. The next step is dangerous. I will be careful, I promise...