A Mother and Daughter Walk Into a Waiting Room

When I was in Virginia with Martha and Ashley (which I wrote about in the June 2 issue, posted here on the 8th), in the waiting room while the transplant took place, I was introduced to the big-screen surgery update. There was a huge, Super Bowl-sized television on the wall that let everyone in the room know who was in pre-op, surgery, post-op and recovery. As a spectator with a patient back in the OR, it was really nice. We knew when the docs were about to come tell us that she was ready for visitors. More importantly, we knew she was safe.

As much as I wouldn’t want anyone to know my business, I had questions. Can’t we have a color-coded system that tells us, on the screen, if someone is having a heart valve replaced (red!), or a penis enlargement (purple!)? Need more info.

Thank goodness for all you crazy people who come along and make my life more interesting when there isn’t a screen to watch, especially at a doctor’s appointment The Girl had last week.

As we walked in, a smoker exhaled right as she walked in the door. Glad you squeezed in that last drag, lady. My daughter appreciated the carcinogens you shared. Maybe next time I’ll tell you about the brown smear that was on the back of your shorts. Maybe.

We checked in, taking our seats in the corner. I can feel a set of eyes on us. I look up, and this woman is staring at us. I smile and look away, assuming I’d caught her mid-glance. There wasn’t anything hanging on the wall behind us. Maybe she just really liked the paint color. She wouldn’t look away.

I’m not sure there’s anything worse than someone talking loudly on their cell phone in a busy waiting room. I take that back. The only thing worse than someone talking loudly on their cell phone in a busy waiting room is someone using a Bluetooth device in a busy waiting room. It took me a couple of minutes to realize that she wasn’t angry at herself or anyone in the waiting room. The entire medical world had failed her and, lucky for us, we got to hear all about it.

Staring Lady is still, well, fixated.

I think I speak for most everyone here. If you are in a waiting room, unless it is really crowded, please try and leave a seat in between you and the next person. There were two rows of empty seats and a man sat right next to The Girl. He was a loud breather, too. The kind where you can hear his every breath whistle through his nose hairs. I know. Bless his heart, that’s probably what brought him to the doctor in the first place. Blah blah blah.

For the most part, the rest of our wait was uneventful. We saw a lady’s brown lace thong when she bent over to pick up the pen she dropped. The smoker stepped outside one more time before her appointment. The nurse came and got Staring Lady. The person on her cell phone had some family drama that seemed to distract from her medical woes. If the nose whistler could’ve played a song, I’d have been much more impressed. Especially if he took requests. “Freebird!”