Yesterday at work I had an appointment with a woman who is 85ish. I have seen her a number of times but usually only 3 or 4 times a year. Yesterday morning she left a message wanting to get in "with that girl...what's her name...it starts with A-N-.....something like that". My coworker called her when she got in at 10:30am and told her that I could see her at 12:30pm. The client agreed to this, but showed up at the clinic at 11am. She came in and asked my coworker if she could treat her. My coworker was busy treating someone else and politely told her that she was 1 1/2 hours early for her appointment and that she would have to wait for me. Then my other coworker came in and this client asked her if she would treat her. My other coworker said, sorry, I already have a fully booked day. My client seemed somewhat distraught about this, but still sat and waited. She was quite thrilled however when one of my coworkers clients brought their husband along, and she sat there the for the whole half hour and talked his ear off.

I need to rewind a little bit here. This woman came in to see me last week. She called in the morning and wanted to come in as soon as she could. I told her that I could see her at 11:15am, and when I got to work at 10am she was sitting there waiting. I told her that I already had a client and that she would have to wait for over an hour until her appointment time. She didn't seem too worried about it.

Fast forward to yesterday, finally I got in around noon and was able to get started on her a little earlier than 12:30pm. I gave her her one hour treatment and told her to take her time getting up (as I do for every client). She did take her time, but she is 85 years old so I didn't think too much of it. She paid and left. I then went into my room and was hit with a wave of menthol smell. She helped herself to my Deep Cold. I keep some on hand in case a client needs it when I am done, but usually I am the one to apply it if I feel they need it. Also, in all the times I have used it on someone, I have never smelled it THAT strong in there. At first I wondered if she had put it somewhere in the room, but I think she probably just slathered it all over herself before she got dressed.

I think that her mind is failing, but she is very outspoken and sometimes can be quite rude. I also don't think she is at a point where reasoning with her would help. There was one time she showed up at the office in the morning after a doctor's appointment upstairs and came in and when there was no one in the front of the office she started yelling "Helloooo, is anyone here???" I was there, giving a treatment and had to go out and tell her that I could not treat her right now because I was in the middle of treating someone else. And then there was another time when we were chatting during a treatment about how she had made some perogies and I said that I liked perogies so she offered to make me some. I thought that sounded great....until I went over to pick them up and she wanted money for them. I was so shocked that I paid her and left. Though she was quite insistent that I stay for coffee, I politely declined.

Not quite sure what to do with this woman. I realize that I only see her a few times a year, but I feel bad when she shows up early and starts harassing my coworkers. A person definitely meets some interesting folk in this line of work.