The Cows Are Never Coming Home

The older I get, the more time I spend in doctors' offices. During countless appointments I have become an expert on what I fondly refer to as the "holding pen".

Waiting rooms are notorious for many things including their odd assortment of reading material. It's tough to choose between the likes of Green Tea Gazette and The Physician's Goat Cheese andYacht Review. Not only are the magazines bizarre, they're usually two to three years old. The pages are stained, wrinkled and spotted, as are a large percentage of the patients waiting to be seen.

Whether there are six or forty-six chairs in the office, an incoming patient with a violent sneeze, cough and cold will gravitate to the seat next to yours. And if you weren't sick before the visit, you're hacking heavily by the time you leave.

Waiting in the front room is similar to traveling on a plane; you're a captive audience. What you have in common with your seatmate is an array of body malfunctions. It's difficult to feign interest in the rash of a stranger, unless you can reciprocate with an itch and scratch story of your own. When this happens you've bonded. By the time they release you from the holding pen, addresses are exchanged along with hugs and promises to write.

Waiting room furniture is designed to create moderate to severe discomfort. The hard plastic chairs are cold, barren and downright painful. Vinyl seating exhales with an annoying hiss, alerting others you're on the move. Left behind when you stand is an imprint of your backside for the rest of the patients to eyeball.

Couches are among the poorest selections for an office. One body too many creates a situation where everyone must breathe and turn magazine pages in unison in order not to capsize.

The truly enlightened patient is the one in the corner with his own lounge chair, picnic basket, and copy of Grisham's A Time to Kill.

Shortly after signing up to wait, a staff member might call your name. Don't be fooled. You'll think you've won the lottery, but instead of being seen by the doctor, you'll be given additional paperwork to interpret and fill out.

Laws are getting so specific I recently signed a sheet that my second cousin twice removed could be told my medical history over the phone, but only on alternate Wednesdays. How many times do you have to sign a privacy document, and do you really have anything to hide after your name, social security number, and medical complaints have been shouted about in the urologist's office?

Perhaps we've become a society programmed to wait. Recently a man from Wichita was called in to see his doctor a mere five minutes after his arrival. He was so shocked he suffered a heart attack and passed away before he could say "Ahhh".

Back in the holding pen, family snapshots are passed around in attempt to remember the faces of loved ones.

When the nurse finally motions in my direction, tears flow as I wave goodbye to my new BFFs. Through a maze of hallways from which I'll need a GPS system to find my way back, I'm led to one of a dozen beige rooms. I don a gown that would fail to cover a Kleenex box, and sit with feet dangling until they turn a delightful shade of blue. The room could double for a meat locker. In fact, there's something in the corner that looks suspiciously like a pork chop.

It's at this point I'm stung with a shot of reality. I've just been removed from the group, put into solitary confinement and here is where, in order to see the doctor, I will continue to...

WAIT