Do wash sale rules apply here?

[Catherine]

Client sold stock options, and the overall transaction took several days as shares were released and sold in chunks.  So the statement from the brokerage has wash sale adjustments listed for the first couple of transactions, limiting the loss.  But does the wash sale rule really *apply* here?  Yes, technically, shares were acquired about three days in a row, and sold either same-day or next-day.  But it was all the same NQO activity, that just happened to get fully transacted over a couple of days.  It could easily have all been done on the same day (and no one knows why not).

We're only talking about $45 in loss here, no huge hairy deal - but it got me wondering.  When I looked it up, the Tax Book says "buys" and "acquires" (identical or substantially identical) shares but nothing about one elongated transaction.  Thoughts?