The Waiting Room Diary

At the doctor's office the other day, I was tired of waiting, so I whipped out my notebook and started writing. This is what I wrote:

At one point in the waiting room, you think you might have to wait forever. The ticking clock further solidifies this feeling, and the nerves you felt upon first entering the room begin to abate. Noises outside in the hall confirm the presence of life. But you are insulated from it, stuck.

The sense of anticipation of the welcoming knock on the door becomes almost unbearable until you're sure it won't come at all. And still the clock moves. First ten minutes. Now fifteen. Latest count, 21 minutes. You realize you wouldn't last an hour in solitary confinement except that in solitary confinement, you have the small comfort of knowing relief is at bay for a day, a week. You can relax somehow. Here, you can't.

So the tension builds. You've looked at the picture on the calendar hanging across the room 17 times now but you don't take the time to study it. You only give it a quick glance because the knock might interrupt your artistic perusal of the piece. Yet, that knock hasn't come for 27 minutes.

Maybe they really did forget about you. Maybe you should open the door a crack and see if anyone would notice. But no, that wouldn't be proper or at all the thing to do. After all, you were raised to be polite and respectful and rushing said doctor might result in a less than desirable outcome to your appointment.

So you sit. And wait. Thirty minutes. Really? A half hour? This would not be tolerated at a fast food chain. Of course, the doctor doesn't have 'fast' in her title --

KNOCK, KNOCK.

To be fair, the doctor more than made up for her running late by spending lots of time with me to listen to my concerns about my health. I still haven't made a decision on said health yet, but I'm getting a second opinion this week.

What will that waiting room diary look like, I wonder?