Someone Get Me Out Of Here!

Is there anything more wonderful than spending the better part of a morning in the waiting room of a doctor’s office? Can I get an “Amen Brother!”? (crickets chirping). OK, maybe not then. What is your problem with it? The desperation, and subsequent utter despair, that you feel deep in your core every time the door to the sacred backroom opens and they call the name of some other undeserving patient that you are darn well sure you signed in before. Or is it the seemingly endless droning of the super smooth jazz remix CD that pushes you to the verge of ending it all and giving rise to cleverly crafted news headlines such as “Death By Kenny G” or “Man Killed By Elevator….Music”? While both of these issues plagued my psyche throughout my most recent visit to the doctor, my attention was at least partially diverted by some interesting personalities that I shared the waiting room with a few days ago.

There were approximately five or six people when I arrived, and approximately ten or twelve empty chairs. As soon as I sat down, one of the gentlemen across the room let loose with a nasal explosion into his mucus matted handkerchief. He then exclaimed, in an obnoxious voice, for the whole room to hear, but not directed at anyone in particular, “Well, I guess it’s hay fever season.” What is proper waiting room etiquette in this situation? Was this a comment that was supposed to be responded to by someone…anyone? Or was it just supposed to float out there in the germ soaked air of the doctor’s waiting room going unresponded to for all eternity? I really wanted to retort into the vastness of space between the room’s sickly occupants in an equally boisterous voice, but really to no one in particular in the same manner as the original comment, “Sure seems like hay fever season to me with all these olfactory catapults flinging cascading boogers and snot all over the place.” But instead of uttering any type of response, I, like everyone else present, simply looked down at my feet, kept my mouth tightly shut, and avoided eye contact with this desperate verbal fisherman who had cast out his line in hopes of reeling in some unwilling conversational partner. I did however silently thank this gentle soul for at least having some mercy on me and using his cacophony of words to drown out, for the briefest of moments, that insipid piped-in jazz music.

After settling into my normal waiting room routine of grabbing a magazine to peruse that I would never read in any other setting, in this case an out of date issue of Martha Stuart Living, a new patient entered through the office door and began the lengthy sign-in procedure. At the end of completing the form, the receptionist politely asked the man to sign at the bottom of the form. I then heard the man, who was likely in his 70’s, quip the following line with such glee and vigor that he obviously thought he was the first person in the world to ever say it, “Just sign my life away, huh?” Awww, the elderly. They really are a sad lot at times. At least the receptionist with the heart of gold gave him a pity chuckle. The rest of the crowd, including heartless yours truly, on the other hand, greeted his attempt at cleverness with a dead silence more powerful than any dramatic groan or eye roll.

As I was busying myself shooting daggers of disdain at the unoriginal old man who was shuffling across the room to find a seat, my eyes became locked on a mustached, middle-aged man who had proceeded to take an old school small black comb (you know, the kind they gave you in elementary school to tame your locks of out of control hair on school picture day) out of the back pocket of his equally old school brown corduroy pants. The man then began to unnecessarily run his comb through his perfectly manicured, feathered back golden-brown mane several times with an intent look on his face reminiscent of Marsha Brady. I could almost hear him counting the strokes in his head. Once he finished the necessary number of “comb throughs”, which apparently was fourteen, he then turned his primping attention to the fur beast that had taken up residence on his upper lip, and began to repeatedly comb this area until he looked as smooth as a 1970’s porn star. Although he looked totally acceptable before this first round of excessive grooming, I watched the inspiration for Carly Simon’s famous song repeat the process three more times during my 45 minute wait to be called into an examination room.

After a few more minutes of waiting, a portly gentlemen entered the waiting room, signed in, and immediately broke the unspoken public bathroom mandate that also applies to areas of community seating know as the “one away” rule. Everyone knows that when you enter a public bathroom, common courtesy dictates that when choosing a stall/urinal to conduct your transaction, you are to leave at least one empty space between you and any other individuals, unless impossible to do so. The same etiquette is typically observed in public seating areas, however this unrefined cretin decided to completely ignore current socially acceptable behavior and planted his posterior right next to me despite their being several other seating choices that would have allowed him to stay in keeping with the “one away” rule. I felt somewhat bad for this poor individual who evidently had some type of respiratory issue, but as the minutes dragged on, his noisy breathing in such close proximity to me began to grate on my nerves. Sad as it was, Wheezing Wendell’s labored breathing actually made me yearn for the office staff to crank up the smooth jazz. I then became convinced this guy was trying to piss me off when he kept allowing his arm to cross our furniture property line and letting his sweaty limb settle on the arm rest of my chair. If this were movie seating where there are shared arm rests, and proprietary division of the arm rests is somewhat questionable, I could somewhat understand. But the fact was that these were chairs with two arm rests assigned to each chair, and there was absolutely no ambiguity about arm rest ownership. The crazy guy might as well have been trying to sit on my lap.  Freakin' space invader. As I daydreamed about smacking the guys arm off my chair and stuffing a dirty rag down his throat to silence his wretched oxygen/carbon dioxide exchange, my name was called out by an angelic voice, and I was whisked away from hell on earth….to wait another thirty minutes for the doctor in a tiny exam room with more out of date periodicals. Just great!