Friday, June 05, 2020

The Waiting Room

I headed to the dentist at 1.45 yesterday to have my missing tooth replaced. I was on time, to the minute, actually.

The waiting room was cleared of all the magazines, the table tops were clean and spartan. Just clean, presumably, sanitised lines.

I sat on the seat and waited. And waited.

Pump pack bottles of clear, bubbly goo sat on the counter.

I looked around and saw the book shelf had been cleared off as well, except for the bottom shelf which seemed to have kids’ books and perhaps some games. I guess you have to keep the little people entertained.

The second bottom shelf had one book, with a much smaller book sitting on top of it, right in the middle of the shelf.

Is that a...? I wondered. It is a...? I got up to check. It was a Gideons, what's more. And one of those tiny prayer books, which I always think are far too small for anyone use. (kind of a metaphor for religion itself, ideas far too small for anyone to use.)

Well, I thought, if we are going to clear out all the rubbish, we shouldn't leave the job unfinished. I stood up and took the Gideons and the prayer book and put them in the waist paper basket provided next to the book shelf. Well, if you are getting rid of the crap, you need to get rid of all the crap. Seriously.

If they didn't keep me waiting for fifteen minutes, I might not have noticed. I wouldn't have been sitting there long enough to get to thinking.

Of course, they will probably see the two books in the waist paper basket when it comes time to empty it, and they will probably retrieve them, of course they will, they'd have to be blind not to. But it amused me for a moment, while I waited, for the time they kept me waiting in the waiting room.

My new tooth took 2 hours to fit. It is lovely too, I guess, although unexpectedly lumpy behind. My dentist had warned me that it would be thicker than my previous tooth, but I assumed she mean 2 millimetres rather than one. This is much thicker than that.

I think I nodded off a couple of times during the 2 hours.

No comments: