“Oh, well, she’s been like that all day.  I did hourly breathing treatments, and she’s on the Prednisone…”

(Truth begins to dawn.  Shrill girl is some kind of health care professional and does NOT want to go back to work…)

“No, no, she’ll be fine.  Really.”

(The message I’m hearing is “I’m at a bar and this guy is trying to pick me up.  I don’t want to be interrupted.”)

 “So, any chance you can come out for a drink later?”

(We’ve spent enough time discussing the boring dying woman.  Let’s concentrate on what’s important…happy hour!)

            “No?  Okay, I’ll see you Monday…”

At this point I had to turn around in order to put faces to the voices.  She was 40ish, bleached blond, painfully thin, and had had a nose job. Pretty in a very carefully “done” way.  He was reasonably handsome, with a shaved head and a fake Rolex.  (Don’t ask how I can spot a fake Rolex in a two-second glance.  I did, after all, live in Newport Beach, California for twelve years.  It was pretty funny, considering that in the earlier, boring portion of the conversation, he had been describing a party he recently attended, where everyone was “fake” and “status conscious.”)

I also wanted to see if the guy would be turned off by what seemed to me like a huge, blinking red warning light: Callous Bitch!  Callous Bitch! Callous Bitch!.  Nope.  He seemed relieved she hadn’t taken the caller seriously and would therefore remain in the bar where he could continue his onslaught.  

I remember thinking that they deserved each other, although this comment isn’t included in my notes.