WAITING ROOMS

I'm never without a book in waiting rooms, prefering talking to people when any are there. Today I sat with three women and a gentleman. One woman was clearly politically in a different place than the rest of us. The gentleman sat with his nose in a book and commented when one lady read his tee shirt and commented..."so you're older than dirt!". He did have a white beard, but otherwise looked younger than a senior. He smiled and said, "That's what this tee-shirt I bought in Arizona says", with a smile. He continued to read throughout the long discussion between (I will call her the angry lady) and me. The woman sitting between the angry lady and me was a woman who had told me previously she lives in Senior housing and is widowed. She was a bit younger than I. A few minutes later the angry woman arrived and we began discussing the current Health Care Bill, the debate over its merits or lack of them when a lovely young and attractive blonde woman sat next to me and kept her nose in a book.

Ordinarily I will stop a heated discussion when others are around, but no one seemed perturbed so the angry lady and I talked on. Things she was saying suggested her husband was a business owner or exec, and later, seeing the fancy car she drove, was even more convinced. The fact that she sees nothing wrong in the number of people who don't have health insurance did not gain her my respect but I kept my portion of the exchange to sincere questions, requesting answers that a reasonable person might have considered. Her TV News allegiance indicated she did not really care for fair and balanced news.

The angry lady was outrageously impassioned, seeming to believet that the louder she could shout, the more convincing she would become. Finally, the lady from senior housing decided to speak up. Since we were two people in discussion I expected to be included in her annoyed (noticeable by the fury and and raised decibels) but she spoke only to the angry woman. One might guess the angry woman was not used to being spoken to with such assertiveness and responded with outrage herself. It was clear from her response that she believed she knew exactly what was right for all people, criticized Obama as though he, singlehandedly, was behind everything in the bill(s), and that she felt pity for those who felt differently.

The remaining four of us wished her a happy day as she glared at us as she left. When I went to the desk to pay up, shortly after, I said to the two people at the counter that we had had a rather spirited discussion back there (I was very sure they had heard it all) and that her husband was probably a business owner. They smiled at each other, knowingly, and smiled at me with no comment. Before I left, I apologized to the others waiting and said I wanted to hear her view and was very sorry if I subjected them to any unpleasantness. It was apparent that the others would not have participated but, as spectators, it had been entertainment for the three of them.

Some of the most educative and entertaining waits have taken place in garages and doctor's offices. While I always take a book, I doubt that I have ever gotten to read more than ten pages in any waiting room and find it a most enlightening social experience. The joy of the contacts is that I don't have to write thank you notes nor have to give most of them another thought. Nevertheless, there are many of those brief contacts and conversations which I shall never forget, persons nor content.