Sunday 31 August 2014

Waiting Patiently... **BLOG POST**




I loathe waiting rooms...particularly doctors waiting rooms!  As you walk what seems the impossibly long distance from the entrance door to the reception area, you know that everyone sat waiting for their appointment...is staring directly at you...


....looking you up and down, through their haze of boredom and bacteria, inwardly criticising and assessing all aspects of your life, purely through their evaluation of whatever your sickly form has managed to drape over its ailing frame that morning.




The good news is that, once you have survived this moment of  public ridicule and humiliation, you can sit with the rest of the Judging Panel and take the piss out of some other poor, ill sod when they stagger in.



It's during the lull between victims, such as these, that you become conscious of the possibility that one...if not all...of the surrounding people could be infectious...and that's when you start to weigh the other up for any signs of contagion. 

You look at the rasping old dear in the corner and, as her fragile body bends and buckles under the strain of a hacking cough, you think to yourself..."the only thing keeping her together is phlegm"!...before continuing your viral vigil whilst trying to avoid inhaling or ingesting any air borne spittle!


Much to my annoyance, recent events found me sitting in one of these places, lolling with the lousy...and not in a laugh-out-loud kinda way.  I was just in the process of mentally diagnosing a middle aged man, whose gait and facial expression suggested he'd spent a considerable amount of time travelling on horseback with a cactus for a saddle...when two women and a child of about six years of age shuffled in and plonked themselves down in the row of seats directly in front of me.



During the course of the 'wait' the two ladies, who I presumed to be mother and daughter, seemed to think we inmates at the surgery were part of a child-minding service, dedicated to the entertainment of the unruly kid who accompanied them.


The kid being the kind of kid whose objective in life will be to piss people off, AND given the mother's pathetic, whispered, half arsed attempt to control him...he will succeed spectacularly in his endeavours to do so...probably already having earned himself a Fisher Price Asbo at least!


This was not the University of New Mexico!

Anyway, after a while of my enduring the fact that neither women could be bothered with the boy, and my resentfully realising  that I was beginning to feel quite sorry for him...I put up with his magic tricks and his incessant questioning.... thus becoming a peculiar part of his upbringing...for  at least half an hour anyway...



Oh and, as all this was going on, to my left there sat an elderly lady, whose knees were nonchalantly positioned at quarter to three...leaving me in little doubt as to her medical complaint!!....



Still, on the whole, whilst I feel I exit these places more affected than I enter them...sometimes my life does feel a little richer for the experience.  Not necessarily from a medical perspective...but from my learning to appreciate the value of the ever unreeling film of  fascinating characters who I've encountered, as I've dawdled on the edge of madness and disease, thanks to the bizarrely entertaining company of the unusual and the un-diagnosed ...





©Copyright Lynn Gerrard 2.8.2012

10 comments:

  1. I love this one, it takes me back. In truth I was one of those unlucky sods who was 'as they used to say' permanently in the pink. I couldn't be ill if I had eaten a shit sandwich. Then, when in need of a certificate so I could meet this Bird on a Thursday. Thursday were plainly work days. I had heard that some people got certs if the had the 'shits'. So off I trotted to the quacks (my Father's favourite expression). The doctor looked me up and down. Obviously noted I was in the pink. "So Clifford! I don't see much of you. What are you here for." "Well Doctor" I smiled "I've got the shits!" The Doctor a comedian and obviously not a quack replied "What all of them?" I was completely stumped. I got up, walked out and went to work on Thursday. Bright and early as usual.

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    1. hahahaha - Lynn, your post was (as always) fabulous....but I fear Ropey's steals the show on this occasion (and with a mere comment too....you may have to ban him lol) ....can't remember the last time I laughed so hard! *waves to R* ;O)

      Kimmie x

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    2. Hahaha! I KNOW!!!..How dare he be so funny!! lol.....

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  2. Hahahaha! Ohhhhh you have so made me laugh!! Genuinely!!...I love that!!!.....thanks to you .....lol....:D

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  3. One of the great advantages of being a writer is finding fun like this in unlikely places! Great post.

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    1. Thank you Jo!...Really glad you enjoyed it...:D x

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  4. Hahah...takes me back to numerous visits to local surgery with D ...who always entered covered with spots that slowly and mysteriously faded as we sat and waited our turn. Thus, by the time we went into the consulting room, she'd returned to her pristine state. I expect there is a note somewhere on my files that says: completely hypochondriac mother'.Or maybe ' Should have gone to Specsavers'.

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    1. Hahaha! Just goes to show...those places can frighten the spots off you!!

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  5. There's always that 'one child' when we go to the doctors. I hate sitting in the waiting room.
    I can remember one trip to the docs though, a few years back, when a man bought his Doberman dog with him. He sat in the waiting room and nobody said anything. He even took the dog into the docs room with him. And here's the thing: being British nobody said a word about the dog but everyone was very put out when the receptionist came to him to tell him he could go into the doc, that he never said 'Thank you' to her. Half a dozen people said 'Some people have got no manners etc' when he went in. I wonder if it would have happened in any other county?

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    1. Once again....a comment is more amusing than my blog post....thank you for giving me a chuckle whilst addressing some very valid points... :D

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