The Waiting Room

 Let's get one thing straight right off the bat; sitting in a waiting room ain't fun. Don't make no difference if you're waiting for your own name to be called or the name of someone whose with you or if your waiting for someone who has already been called in to come out. Or maybe you're at an airport waiting for the announcement that your flight will begin boarding shortly or that you got lucky and your name was called from the stand-by list. Waiting just ain't fun.

Waiting rooms come in all shapes and sizes. Some waiting rooms are big and impersonal like at an airport of a county court house. Others verge on tiny with maybe 5 or 6 chairs like at the clinic that I just left. It was a physical therapy clinic. It was tastefully decorated as far as that goes but that doesn't help with the feeling that if I'm sitting there doing nothing a portion of my life is slowly fading away. 

I was waiting for Maribel who has a problem with her shoulder. A  doctor in Chattanooga says the problem is what's called 'frozen shoulder'. A doctor in Peru diagnosed it as tendonitis. Both prescribed physical therapy. It doesn't help the situation with me not being a fan of physical therapy. I rank PT right up there with chiropractic, acupuncture and voodoo as effective medical treatment. I firmly believe that anything that PT might help would have cured itself in time. 

One thing that waiting rooms all have in common is people, and more precisely people with cell phones. Some have it to their ear but most are scrolling or typing. Of the 4 people in the afore mentioned waiting room 3 had cell phones in their hands. Not me. And I didn't have one in my pocket. I don't now and never have owned a cell phone. No reason to get into why.

That doesn't mean my hands are empty. I know that someday a young person will approach me in a waiting room and say..."Mister, can I ask you what that is you have in your hand?" And I will reply..."This is called a book." I'll go on to explain that it has pages made of paper, that it has words printed on that paper, that a person wrote those words, that a publisher published it, and that books have souls. I will also show to the inquirer the book marker I use to keep track of where I left off reading. It's an elongated plastic marker blue in color with a pair of dolphins on the front and Barnes & Noble on the back. It has a tassel, also blue, on the top. It is cracked in several places and is held together with transparent tape. It has been my constant companion for at least 25 years. 

I imagine that the inquirer will probably return to their chair and Google 'book', and will read that books, like newspapers are extinct artifacts that previously were used to convey written information. I doubt that the article will mention that books also served a useful purpose in waiting rooms.