Hospital waiting room

I’m sitting here waiting for my follow-up doctors visit (which I’m told has been delayed ~90 minutes) and the array of characters here is not helping my opinion of hospitals.

Anybody in my family will tell you that I hate these places – the bright lights, the weird “sanitary” smell, the random shrieks coming out of rooms down the hall – it for some reason in my mind always seems akin to that scene in “The Shining” with the little girls in the hallway.

Because I don’t have a “primary doctor” I basically have to wait in urgent care with the other walk-ins, waiting my turn, where I can tell them what my problem is. In the room with me waiting there are no less than the following cast of characters:

1. A Hispanic family who has changed the only television to a Spanish channel and is now huddled around it watching god knows what while 5 of them try to get their shot at a single bag of potato chips

2. A mother with a baby and what I can guess is a 4 year old daughter. The daughter alternates between climbing on chairs, pointing out things she sees in the room, and running in circles screaming – all while the mother occasionally tells her to sit down.

3. A middle-aged lady wearing pajama pants who is complaining to somebody on her cell phone that she has not received care fast enough. She has no apparent problem and has been here less than 15 minutes. Her husband – I assume he is her husband – has not looked up from the floor since they sat down.

4. An individual I perceive to be a woman wearing nothing but a hospital gown, a wristband, and a pair of crocs. Thankfully it is a full gown, not the kind that is wide open all the way to ass town.

5. A guy wearing gloves seated at the only table in the waiting room, rubbing his hands across the circles in a “wax on, wax off” fashion, who occasionally mutters “I just want to go home.”

6. A very nice older lady in a wheelchair who appears to be the only one of us with any discernible problem. She has offered the little girl running in circles a piece of gum, which her mother refused, as well as asked me what the logo on my baseball hat is. It is Chief Wahoo.

All in all, everyone save for the wheelchair lady appears to be thoroughly miserable. Nobody has left this room since I have arrived, making me wonder if the staff is just in a holding pattern waiting for somebody to rush in with a badger latched onto their aorta.

I hate hospitals so damn much…