Waiting getting harder as I get older
Like most people I do not enjoy going to the doctor’s office, and the problem is not with the doctors themselves.
I know when I am sick that doctors can help get me feeling better quickly. Unlike some people I know, I do not think doctors are quacks trying to scam people out of their money.
I do, however, have a problem with the waiting rooms at the doctor’s office. The rooms are poorly thought out considering they are stuffed full of sick people.
Unfortunately, it gets worse the older I get.
The worst part about going to the doctor when I was a kid was in the examination room, where the answer to illness seemed to be a shot. As a child I failed to see the logic in making somebody feel better by stabbing them.
The waiting room was great though. There were interesting books to read and toys for the kids to play with.
Come to think of it, maybe the toys weren’t such a good idea. There was always one kid with a runny nose who apparently thought the toys were food because the kid always put them in his or her mouth.
That seems to promote more sickness, but I guess that is how you keep a steady stream of business coming through the door.
When I got older magazines replaced the toys. I was always looking for something to read, so I was never bored while waiting.
In the past five years things have changed.
I have noticed as I have gotten older that time seems to be moving much quicker than when I was younger. I could have sworn when I was a child there were two years between each Christmas, but now Christmas feels like it happens every six months.
Unfortunately, the warp-speed time I have experienced does not happen in the waiting room at the doctor’s office. I guess the physics that govern the rest of the world do not apply within those germ-infested walls.
It would not be so bad if the office could keep the magazines in the lobby — the only thing available to help pass the time — up to date.
When I had my wisdom teeth removed earlier this year I found a news magazine in the waiting room from May 2008. The interesting thing is I am pretty sure the office was not built until 2009.
I enjoy reading sports magazines, but I do not find the article calling Babe Ruth — who has been dead for 62 years — a “youngster with potential” all that fascinating.
Maybe the bulky healthcare reform bill passed earlier this year has a clause about keeping magazines up to date, but I doubt it.
But there is not much I can do. If you need to see the doctor, you have to play by his rules.
At least now I don’t have to worry about catching something from the kid who can’t keep the toys out of his mouth.
