January 10, 2007
View Comments | Post CommentWaiting For Urgent Care
There is nothing more depressing than a walk-in clinic waiting room.
A few situations come close. Emergency room waiting rooms are pretty bad, but everyone is so preoccupied with either their real problems, or else preoccupied with the overt problems of the other people there waiting, that they manage to remain engaged, inwardly or outwardly.
But at walk-in clinics, the injuries are not so obvious as to command attention. Peoples' stomachs hurt, or they have to wait for a sports physical, or they are constipated, or they have diarrhea, or--at worst--they got a mild laceration and need a few stitches. So everyone is left with nothing to do for a couple hours except to stare at each and guess each others' problems, while steadfastly avoiding the topic of the maladies in the rare small-talk-blatherings they occasionally make in order to pass the time. The guys will every now and then talk about whatever football game was recent enough and popular enough that the other guys would have watched or heard about it. They each act like they cared. "The Gators just kept getting such good field position." Whatever crap they caught on Sportscenter that morning.
No one notices the fact that the woman in the corner has gone to the bathroom at least nine times in the last hour, or that the little girl who is waiting there with her father keeps exposing her underwear, or that the old man in the red hat is only wearing a sock on one of his feet, or that, whatever is wrong with that kindergarten kid with the twenty-year old mother, he never seems bothered by it until his mother comes over and asks him how he feels.
Those aren't vivid like the gushing, gurgling blood from some crazy hole in some man's neck at the emergency room. Or the gruesome angle at which that freckly kid's elbow is bent in the E.R., his Mr. Potato Head arm still sticking out of his Jefferson High Wrestling singlet with his hand facing the wrong direction, and it's all he can do not to bump it on the patterned E.R. furniture while he tries to read A Separate Peace for Sophomore English. Or the five, ten, twenty, thirty Ethiopians that keep arriving to the emergency room in tears, wailing, embracing, mourning the final passing of a beloved matriarch.
No, the walk-in clinic waiting room is just humanity in a holding pattern. The clock ticks as it becomes more and more obvious how vast a difference there is between "urgent care" and "emergency." People divert their glassy eyes whenever they accidentally make eye contact. No one will look you in the eye. A woman waddles up to the reception desk and demands to know why the man that was sitting over there was called before she was called, when she was here first? After the manicured receptionist gives the same response that she gives to ten other people every day, the disgruntled patient waddles back to her seat, wishing she could just take her business elsewhere.
Suddenly, the water fountain cooling motor turns on audibly. It's the loudest sound that's come from the waiting room in minutes. Couples, normally chatty, say nothing, communicating only with the occasional sigh. The man with the moustache and the Atlanta Falcons puffy jacket shifts his weight to his right, trying not to touch the hair of the tiny elderly woman who is sitting absolutely straight up in her chair, chin up, eyes wide open and straight ahead, but focused off into the distance. In the silent, motionless environment, the polyester friction from the puffy jacket makes a sound so extreme that it causes at least two heads to turn. Minutes pass. A woman sneezes, and another woman says, "bless you." The woman sneezes a second and third time, but no one says anything.
Eventually, your friend or family member's name gets called. They hop up immediately to meet the nurse at the door. You notice that they don't look back before going inside. Pay close attention to that. No matter who they are leaving behind in that little cell of a reception area, no one ever looks back when they're leaving the walk-in clinic waiting room. Thirty minutes later, they come back out, prescription in hand, but no smile. They make eye contact with you and you get up and follow them out the door. Neither of you say anything until you're outside. Neither of you look back.
There is nothing more depressing than a walk-in clinic waiting room.
Posted at January 10, 2007 2:48 AM | Comments (4)
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I feel the same way about Social Security Card office. Have you ever been to the one in Valrico? It serves Dover, Plant City, Valrico, and Seffner. Think about the characters who come and go through there. Very depressing.
Posted by: Amanda at January 10, 2007 9:07 AM
Brilliant writing.
As someone who has logged her fair share of sitting in these places thanks to a chronic illness, I can say that you've nailed them. I would also add that I've been in them in North Carolina, Maryland, and South Florida and oddly enough, regardless of location, they are all identical.
Posted by: Brunch Bird at January 10, 2007 2:58 PM
Amanda - I had initially written also about the DMV, but I cut it for length. Those sorts of places are similar, but somehow less melancholy since they don't involve sickness and injuries. But the fact that they are less melancholy doesn't make them any less boring.
BB - You sound like a guru of waiting rooms. You should do urgent care facility waiting room reviews, so we all know the hottest spots in D.C. My own experience is limited to Tampa, D.C., and now, the one that inspired this post, Savannah, Georgia.
Posted by: Barzelay at January 10, 2007 3:54 PM
I can think of one thing that is more depressing than a walk in clinic waiting room.
THE OHIO STATE BUCKEYES! ZING!
Posted by: Chris Santoro at January 10, 2007 7:48 PM
