Some people hunt, some people gather. I am in the latter group.
A writer gathers material and the most fertile gathering grounds are wherever large groups congregate. This would include airports during snowstorms, the DMV, and medical waiting rooms.
Material pickin’s have been slim because of large-group restrictions but I have fond memories of those bountiful pre-COVID days when too many unmasked strangers would sit in overheated rooms and someone — anyone — would start to raise a ruckus.
Because I’m a pro gatherer, I can spot ‘em the minute they open their mouths. And my first thought is always, “Oh goody goody! Entertainment.”
You can’t makes this stuff up
This happened in a four-doctor waiting room in Southampton. I was already settled when a man came in together. Gatherers like it when people travel in pairs because we try to figure out the relationship and then come up with a story that fits them.
“Go sign your name, Ma,” the man said, taking the fun out of my game. The woman added her name to the list and took a chair next to her son and directly across from me. She looked around the room and counted heads. I watched her lips move. Thirteen. Her son had his head buried in an open newspaper. She didn’t count him.
After about 10 minutes, when no one was summoned to or returned from the inner sanctum where doctors hide, the woman nudged her son and asked what time it was.
“Quarter past,” came a voice from behind the paper. The woman grabbed his wrist to look for herself.
“You need a new watch,” she said, dropping his arm. “It’s got to be later than that.”
The son mumbled something, which might have been “Shut the @#$# up!”
And we’re off!
She didn’t hear it because she had already launched into a one-woman monologue.
“For this, I rushed around like a crazy woman?” she asked nobody. Or everybody.
“I could have washed my hair. I didn’t think I had time, but if I knew before, I would have washed it. I bet all the doctors aren’t here today. There’s a lot of flu going around. Probably one of the doctors has the flu and the others have to take care of the extra patients. And probably one of the other doctors got called to some emergency at the hospital. That’s probably what’s taking so long.”
“What time was your appointment?”
She asked this twice before I realized the question was directed at me. I told her I was waiting for a friend who was with a doctor.
“Lucky friend. At least somebody got in. I would have washed my hair,” she said. “I didn’t because I wanted to be on time, but if all these other people go ahead of me, I probably can go home and wash my hair.”
She spoke as though “all these other people” couldn’t hear her. She continued jabbering, but not to me because I had grabbed a seven-year-old “Field & Stream.” However, gatherers are always listening. Actually, everyone was listening; there was no way to not listen.
I take that back, the only one not listening was the son.
And then this happened
Just then a man came into the waiting room and didn’t even bother to sign in. He spoke a few words to the receptionist and was immediately ushered to the inner sanctum.
Oh boy! Gatherers live for moments like these, and all eyes were on Ma as she elbowed her son so hard his newspaper crumpled and so did he.
“Did you see that? Did you? That man went in out of turn.”
“Maybe he’s sick, Ma.”
“Sick!” Ma made a noise like air being let out of a balloon.
“That man walked right in front of me,” she said. “I can tell sick and he was not sick! When one of the doctors has the flu and the other is at the hospital for an emergency, they shouldn’t let people go out of turn. It’s not fair. That’s what’s wrong with this country. Should be first-come, first-served. People are so ‘me first.”
She looked around the room.
“Maybe nobody else cares, but I do,” she said and started to rise from her chair when her son grabbed her arm.
“Just sit and wait!” he said.
“I can’t wait. My head itches,” she said, pulling loose from his grip and marching right up to the window. But before she could rap on the glass, the man who had just walked in came out. He was carrying a copy machine. “I’ll get this back to you today,” he said.
And, in a moment best described by seasoned gatherers as hitting the mother lode, Ma returned to her seat, took another hard poke at her son.
“See,” she said, smugly. “I told you he wasn’t sick.”
