There's something about the late fall that brings out the worst in people. Maybe it's the shorter days. Maybe it's the bare-boned trees, the gray skies, or the onset of cold weather. Whatever the reason, there's definitely a sharp increase in the number of irritable and rude people that pass through the office and through the phone lines this time of year. After a few snide comments, and general grouchiness from patients demanding appointments and favors, the staff gets irritable, and pass on all the minor insults, irritating comments, and general piques to me, so that I in my turn, get a good dose of the general misery. It's times like these that I come dangerously close to becoming a misanthrope.

I pull myself back from the precipice by spending a quiet evening commiserating with Dr. Leo Marvin in What About Bob? There aren't too many movies that I like to watch more than once, but What About Bob? is movie-as-therapy for me. I have a disquieting feeling when I watch it that most viewers are probably more sympathetic with the Bill Murray character, the crazy but endearing Bob, than they are to Richard Dreyfuss's arrogant, self-centered psychiatrist, Dr. Marvin. But when I watch it, my sympathy is entirely with the doctor.

I sympathize with him because I, too, know what it is to have someone intrude on my privacy. Once in a while, a particularly manipulative patient will convince the answering service to breach protocol and call me at home when I'm off duty. A few times it's made me miss things that were important - a parent/teacher conference, a child's recital. It's a no-win situation for the doctor. You know the patient's being manipulative, that they don't truly have an emergency, but if you get angry you run the risk of seeming uncaring, ungracious, and unprofessional. They're sick after all.

So, I understand only too well how Dr. Marvin must feel when Bob confronts him in public while he's on vacation and demands, "Give me, give me, give me. I need, I need, I need, I need!" And I get a sense of catharsis in watching his attempts to be rid of the man. When he straps explosives to him and leaves him in the woods, part of me wants to see Bob blow up. Unfortunately for Dr. Marvin, he never rids himself of Bob. I never succeed in ridding myself entirely of the manipulative, intrusive, demanding patients, either. But, watching What About Bob? helps me put things into perspective, laugh it off, and face another day without going off the deep end.