An Afternoon Spent In The Waiting Room.

A delightful theater of ordinary people.

Going for Bob's annual ( in this case a bit longer ) eye exam always seems such a gargantuan undertaking. For some reason a five minute session with the ophthalmologist elongates into a two hour wait. Honestly, really, every time. They add on a whole lot of other tests that aren't needed. Eyes get checked out by an in-house optometrist every time despite not needing new glasses, for example.  In between a whole lot of waiting around.

Bob was inside the reception area and I had a corner chair outside, far from the mad crowd! Oh, I love watching people and their antics. Take that elderly couple, with the husband clearly being much older than his wife. They communicated by stage whisper and thus I couldn't help but overhear him ask her:

                  

     " Where are we going after this? "

She whispered something into his ear to which he erupted loudly and angrily;

     " I am not going to the hairdresser. Do you hear me! No, never,  you can't make me! "

His wife was so embarrassed that she scootled off into the distance and we all pretended to look elsewhere whilst smiling to ourselves, imagining our own futures. For the next ten minutes, every time she came back from her meanderings about the waiting area, he reiterated that he was by no means going to have his hair cut...could have used a haircut my good man.

Another lot of patients were a mother and her almost teenage daughter. I say almost teenage because mum still tried to boss daughter around and succeeded to some degree with only a few rebellious outbursts. Poor girl had to read her school work aloud and be quizzed by mum as well as having her beanie pulled off without warning. Oh, mothers...when will they learn?

Another source of a giggle ( so much easier to giggle with mask on. No one notices it ) was a family with three small children. A mother, an older man whom I mistook for Opa until I heard the young boy ( about 3 ) call him dad. Goodness, what energy indeed. At one stage the little boy asked his dad why he didn't sit down next to him, which prompted his dad to say;

        " You know I can' t sit down. It hurts my knee when I have to get up. "

Yip, respect for having such a young and big family. All three youngens were extremely well behaved, listened to their parents and gave me a smile while nodding hello. There's the secret to good manners...older dads!

Despite those long two hours sitting about, it was an entertaining afternoon. Is there anything nicer and more informative than watching people and their ways?  As for Bob's eyes, they are perfect...well almost; at one point  ( after the haircut affair! )  I jokingly told Bob that he might have to help me highlight my hair, as I told him I hadn't had colour done since February. To which my darling husband said while scrutinizing my hair;

           " I hadn't really noticed but now that you mention it,

 there are quite a few grey streaks on your head! "

Biggi