This happened in the waiting room at the Dr's office this morning, and while
I don't think I was rude, I would like to know what you all think.
The waiting room has 8 chairs. It is a small practice and I have never been in there when more than 5 chairs at a time have been taken. That said, if ever I were in the room and 6 of the 8 chairs were in use, I would not put my things on a chair in case 2 more people came in at once. This morning when I was in, there were 3 folks in the waiting room (including me). I sat down and put my (knee length leather) jacket and purse on the chair next to me. That left empty chairs as follows (o = empty, x = person, m = me, p = my purse, r = receptionist):
ooxo
r
pmox
When I sat down, I was anticipating a longish wait as I was 15 minutes early and had to see both the dr and the nurse. I spin yarn and knit and find that the waiting room at the dr's office is a nice place to work on this as I always have to wait and it's one of the rare times I don't have little hands trying to "help" me hold the yarn. I pulled out my spinning project* and set to work. This led to a nice sort of conversation with the woman across from me who was interested in what I was doing. This is also the other reason I wanted my purse next to me - so I could access my wool to add it on to my spindle.
As I was working and waiting for my appointment, another woman came in, checked in and then walked across the room to the seat where my purse was.
Her: "I want to sit there."
I just looked up at her and tried to formulate a response. I said "Uhhhhhm??" and looked around at the empty seats trying to figure out why she wanted specifically the seat where my purse was, since the door to the actual office was by the receptionist and there were quite a few empty seats.
She huffed out a "Uhg! Never mind!" And flounced (really flounced!) to the empty seat across from the one she wanted.
I was called in to the nurse shortly after that. When I came back out, she was gone (and only one person was in the waiting room), so I sat back where I was, put my jacket and purse back on the seat next to me, and waited to be called to see the Dr.
I personally don't think I was rude to put my coat and purse on the seat next to me. Of course, I would have moved it if there has been fewer seats to people.
What do you think? Rude or not rude?
(to get an idea of what I was doing, it was like this, with a lap bowl and a smaller version of the spindle the woman in the video is using -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdSdzSRT_rA )
(spelling edit)
