Quagmire

“The anesthetist will come and ask you a few questions, to ascertain certain facts. Kind of like a hangman working on your noose actually.”

Despite these cheery words of parental encouragement upon arriving at the hospital, the removal of all four wisdom teeth was not as daunting as expected. I guess the horror stories are false…or at the least, exaggerated.

Then again, the prospect of surgery pales in comparison to the thought of spending many hours in: The Waiting Room.

Paperwork completed, and parents gone, it was time to once again call upon the stored knowledge of proper Waiting Room etiquette.

First of all, ascertain that you are, in fact in a Waiting room. If it doesn’t have a line of chairs (usually against a wall), a TV tuned to a channel that no-one has the slightest interest in watching or stacks of magazines, some with recipes subtly removed, then further probing into the etiquette file will not be required.

If it is a waiting room, and you have the luck of being the only one occupying it, then Congratulations! You have your pick of seats. However, if there are others, you had better have your mathematical-problem-solving hat on, because there’s an unspoken rule that you have to sit at least and equal distance away from every person in the room. We can’t have strangers sitting next to each other now can we? Tough luck if the only seat fulfilling this criteria is situated next to the bin, is home to ABC gum, and (in a galaxy far, far) away from the Reader’s Digests.

Next comes reading material. It’s a fine balance. You could be called away at any time, and so you need to select something that isn’t going to bore you to tears, while at the same time, it cannot be interesting enough to cause you distress at the prospect of being separated from it, mere moments before you can get to the end of that article about Jack Nicholson and his experiences filming “The Departed.”

Always be careful not to look at other people in the room. If you happen to notice that they are holding a magazine that looks oh-so-much-more-interesting than the one you happen to be perusing, the jealousy really can drive you over the edge, and before you know it, you snap out of daze to find that you’ve been watching Hi-5 for the last half hour…

Finally, when it does come to Exit Time, move at a normal speed. DO NOT speed away with the air of an escapee – this breach of etiquette could cause a chain reaction and an ultimate break-down Waiting Room Behaviour, the results of which could be disastrous! People sitting next to each other, magazine snatching…basically chaos could ensue…

Ah well, I’m getting off the main point, which is that I got ice cream, and it was good.