Free Now in Paperback! by Jim Mullen Page A

if waiting is the most normal thing in the world that we could be doing with our time. We’re not fuming, we’re not steaming, we’re not twiddling our thumbs because it’s a waiting room—not a fuming room, not a steaming room, not a twiddling-our-thumbs room.
    There must be some really thoughtless doctors out there who take patients as soon as they show up at their scheduled time and don’t give them any time to wait. But as soon as they are found, they are drummed out of the profession. Of course, it’s not just doctors that make us wait. Airports are composed almost entirely of waiting rooms. They have acres and acres of waiting rooms. The waiting rooms are so humongous they have book stores and restaurants and souvenir stands and coffee bars in them. If the airlines really thought every flight would leave on time do you think they’d build such gigantic waiting rooms? Maybe the ticket price for air travel should drop each hour you have to wait. Wait one hour, ten dollars off the ticket price, two hours, you save twenty dollars and so on. For every hour you sit in the plane on the tarmac, fifty dollars off the ticket price. Under this system, most of us could make money by flying.
    My appointment with Dr. Godot was for two o’clock; I still haven’t seen him and it’s now three o’clock. But if I had shown up at three o’clock I would have missed my appointment. I would have been late. That seems so one-sided. If I have an appointment with Dr.Godot, why doesn’t Dr.Godot have an appointment with me? Oh sure, I understand that there are emergencies. I watch those hospital shows on TV. Well, I used to, but not anymore. It’s too unreal.
    On TV, entire families walk right into the Emergency Room without waiting; Mom, Dad, five or six children all wailing and screaming, “Don’t let her die!” She has a bad case of psoriasis. The psoriasis family never fills out a form; they never wait a minute. The doctors on television all look like fashion models. Dr. Godot looks like Jack Klugman.
    On television no one ever waits. A show called WR wouldn’t stand a chance. Who would want to watch a big room full of people moaning and sneezing and bleeding from the forehead and NOT being treated?
    At least Dr. Godot tries to class up his waiting room and make it comfortable. He hangs pieces of fine art, and the chairs are big and soft. I even know what he does in his spare time thanks to the magazines scattered around. Godot subscribes to High Class Ski Resorts , Exclusive Golfing in Europe , Expensive Antiques Monthly , Cigar and Wine Bore and Cayman Islands Tax Shelters .
    There is a very fine reproduction of a large, ancient Etruscan vase in his waiting room placed between two chairs. It’s waist-high. The classy effect is spoiled, however, by the hand-printed note taped above the vase that says, “This is not a garbage can!”
    How can they be so sure? Maybe that’s exactly what the Etruscans used it for. Garbage pick-up on the ides and nones of every month. The Etruscans are probably having a good laugh that Godot paid six grand for it at auction.
    Finally at three-thirty the nurse told me the doctor would see me now.
    “I’m so sorry about the delay,” said Dr. Godot, “but there was an emergency. A man collapsed out at the golf course.”
    “Is he all right?”
    “I suppose so; EMS took care of him. But it held up our foursome for an hour.”

It’s a Fun Job, But Someone’s Got to Do It
    D riving past a fast food restaurant today I spotted a sign out in front that said, “FUN JOBS! Apply Inside.” Fun jobs. The sign seemed to contradict something my Dad used to say to me at least five or six times a week when I was a teenager: “If it was fun, they wouldn’t call it work.” His other favorite sayings were “That bed won’t make itself,” “That lawn won’t mow itself,” “This house won’t paint itself,” and the one we always hated to hear, “That finger won’t sew itself back