"NO ! DON'T TOUCH ANYTHING !" I shouted at an old woman who'd been forced to stand outside for a quarter of an hour after arriving for her appointment far too early, as she pressed the button on the Waiting Room hand gel dispenser which had a boldly printed sign beside it saying, 'Do NOT use this until told to by a member of staff !'
It really does !
She ignored me and used it anyway and none of the reception staff even noticed anything out of the ordinary except for an old man wearing an ancient browning-at-the-edges face mask seemingly suffering from Tourettes !
I eventually got escorted upstairs for my treatment and as one now has to put one's face mask back on after removing it for the dentist to do his work I did as instructed and followed the nurse back downstairs to be let out, or at least started to !
Unfortunately, after seeing the nurse squirt gel one-handed from the dispenser outside the treatment room and thinking that I ought to do the same I pressed up one handedly, as she had done ten seconds before, but instead of a little squirt to cleanse myself the entire body shot upwards and plummeted to the carpet, ejecting its entire contents into a fan shaped disaster zone with the bracket parts that once held it to the wall crashing down beside it !
She angel-like said, "Oh my goodness !" or something similar and I shouted out, "OH FOR GOD'S SAKE HOW DID THAT HAPPEN ?" !
Everyone came running, including my dentist, all expecting to see my body at the bottom of the stairs !
"Oh I'm SO sorry nurse, here let me help you clean it up !" I begged, desperate to make amends !
And she, as calm as calm could be asked me to leave the job to her and ushered me downstairs and saw me out before shutting the door behind me.....quite forcefully I thought at the time !
It was only after I'd made two more calls that I got back in the car and spotted the mountain of gel still sitting on my left shoe and asked God to eradicate what they'd thought they'd seen from the brains of the people in the shops I'd subsequently dealt with and who'd said nothing but HAD backed away from me !
