About The Waiting Room

Post 256:

            Oh the joys of the doctor’s office. Had to go today, check on some something or other. Can there be anything more defeating to the soul than the waiting room? Did the first doctor have a waiting room? Does the Hippocratic Oath have any details about what you do to the patients before you do no harm? When doctors used to make frequent house calls, did they sit outside on the porch, smoking a pipe and sipping lemonade, in essence, turning the entire person’s house into a waiting room?

            These are the questions you ask when you’re sitting in the waiting room.

            There are very few professions where you can say to your assistants, “They can wait. We have a whole designated area designed just for that purpose.”

            Just weird, is all.

            What’s with the book selections at the doctor? Not magazines. Those are all fairly uniform, and, well, I hate magazines and never pick them up. My life has never been affected by anything in a magazine. So let’s get back to the books.

            I’m probably overthinking this. In fact, I’m sure of it.

            But screw it. I want some answers.

            There’s the books you know they just got at some consignment sale, random titles that were never read by anyone and they got thrown into the bargain bin type stuff.

            But then there’s the occasional weird one. Today there were some selections that made me wonder. First, how am I going to finish this whole book? Is the wait going to be that long? If you see War and Peace in the waiting room, just saying, get the hell out. Two things that doctor is conveying with something like that: either life sucks, or you really have a long lonely stint ahead of you.

            Pretty sure physicians wanted to be entertainers. The anticipatory music and the low lights lulling you into a sense of what’s coming, then the band or the comedian comes out and everyone’s just happy to see anything. Only they’re just going to check your eyes or whatever.

            And then they announce your name. Everybody’s got to hear your name. Repeat it, even. Can’t they come over and tap you on the shoulder, wake you up after you’ve passed out from the long intro into Tolstoy?

            Just saying. The things that you think about in the waiting room. See you after.