50 Thoughts You Have Inside A Doctor's Waiting Room

(originally posted on postgradproblems.com)

Ah, visiting the doctor. It’s one of the many joys of being a real adult in the real world. Waiting rooms are sort of like being momentarily locked in solitary confinement–you’re not there to make nice with anyone else, so you just wait and think.

  1. Wonder how long the wait’s gonna be this time? Let the countdown begin.
  2. I don’t get it. Why make appointments for certain times when you’re basically just gonna see me when you can see me?
  3. I sound like Larry David.
  4. I love him.
  5. No. Not, like, love. Like, IN love. Would marry him love. Would be his young mistress love.
  6. I wonder what all these people are in for.
  7. She looks relatively healthy.
  8. He doesn’t.
  9. Ew, his cough is foul. I bet he has walking pneumonia.
  10. Or bronchitis.
  11. My dad had walking pneumonia for months without knowing it.
  12. It was like power walking pneumonia.
  13. Ha! Jogging pneumonia.
  14. Marathon running pneumonia.
  15. How much is my copay again?
  16. Oh yeah, $20. Damn, Gina. That’s a good copay.
  17. I wonder how it would be without insurance? Probably, like, a million dollars.
  18. #obamacare
  19. I wish I cared more about politics. I feel like maybe I’d be smarter for it, more informed.
  20. But it seems to make a lot of people hate each other, so maybe not.
  21. Fucking “House of Cards,” man. Now those are the kinds of politics I can get down with.
  22. **With which I can get down.
  23. It’s already been 15 minutes. Jesus. I have places to be.
  24. I wonder how much I’ll weigh and how non-awkwardly I can take off my shoes and every other extra piece of clothing to ensure minimum poundage on that godforsaken scale.
  25. Why don’t doctor’s offices have updated scales? What’s with using the first scale ever invented in the history of medical equipment?
  26. Oh, fuck.
  27. Old person with an oxygen tank in the room now. I am going to have a panic attack. That person’s lungs literally do not work. She’s a robot.
  28. Why do older people with oxygen tanks in the same waiting room as me make me so incredibly nervous?
  29. She’s wearing a face mask, too.
  30. I wonder WTF is going on there?
  31. I miss my pediatrician.
  32. I so badly want to read that issue of Us Weekly. Finish up already.
  33. Maybe if I stare at her long enough?
  34. Or I could read my book that I brought, just like that of a 60-year-old waiting in a waiting room.
  35. Whatever. I like to read. So?
  36. Maybe that’s why I’m single? Because of my enjoyment of being literate and proactively using it?
  37. I like to read out loud, actually. Like, right now, I’d love to read a section of my book to the room. In a perfect world, they’d love it. Then, we’d all break into a theatrical song about how we love reading.
  38. I’m insane.
  39. So glad my coffee shit happened before I got here. Probably saved myself two pounds on that fucking scale.
  40. My breath reeks, though.
  41. Damn. Out of gum.
  42. Am I not supposed to chew gum at the doctor’s office? Is that considered rude or unhealthy?
  43. Maybe that’s just the dentist.
  44. It’s so cliché to say “I hate the dentist,” but I really do hate the dentist.
  45. Twenty minutes now. I should say something. But what if someone is really sick back there? Or what if a person’s been dealing with a lot and finally broke down to the doctor and is having, like, a totally impromptu therapy session? It’s hard for people to open up sometimes, so I should let that person have this. He/she needs it more than I do.
  46. I am such a good person.
  47. I should’ve been a therapist.
  48. Well, maybe not. The sessions would be like, “So, tell me about your childhood after I tell you about mine.”
  49. That’s it. I’m saying something. This is bullshit.
  50. I am so glad I only do this once a year.
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