Another Rant

Rant

You'd think that a doctor's waiting room would be a quiet, peaceful place where you could catch up on your reading while you patiently wait for your name to be called, or for a loved one or friend that you've accompanied to emerge from seeing the doctor or dentist.

I've learned that waiting room reading material is usually pretty bad unless you're into year old news magazines, or “Heart and lung Health” periodicals, so now I always bring my trusty Kindle along to quietly pass the time.

Unfortunately there are invariably people who think that every one is dying to hear about their their son-in-laws hemorrhoid operation, (“They were as big as pecans!”) or show pictures of their ugly grand kids to anyone who is unfortunate enough to be sitting nearby.

Today at Carol's eye doctor appointment I picked seats for us away from the few people that were there. The weather was snowy and the roads were icy so evidently there had been quite a few cancellations. After Carol went in to see the doctor I pulled out my Kindle and started reading a nice, juicy horror story. I closed my mind off to the small chatter going on and submerged myself in the scary story.

Then the one showed up. The one who always talks loud. The one who always talks about her or himself. I tried to ignore him and shut his irritating voice out of my ears but it was impossible.

“I almost died from that kidney infection,” he said in his politician- running for office voice, “After the operation the doctor said that he'd never seen so much pus!”

The poor lady sitting next to him got up and went toward the bathroom, (probably to throw up) so he started to turn his attention across the room to me. It's hard to bury your face in a Kindle but I gave it a good try, so he directed his next charming story to an older man in a wheelchair. Fortunately for the old man his caregiver came out and wheeled him away, probably saving his sanity. I buried myself further in the Kindle and without an audience the blowhard realized he was talking to himself and wound down like an unplugged record player.

(For you youngsters that's what we used to listen to music on before DVDs, MP3's CD's and cassette tapes. Records were these round vinyl things with a hole in the middle that... Oh never mind!”)

Luckily Carol came out and we departed, leaving Mr. blowhard waiting patiently for another unfortunate audience to arrive.