Waiting Rooms I Have Loved
(Originally written September, 2004–GK)
I haven’t mentioned it yet, a “friend” of mine is currently getting some “R & R” at the Broomfield County Jail. The dipstick doesn’t quite touch the oil, if you know what I mean, and he’s made a series of poor decisions that resulted in this temporary change of address. It’s unclear how long he has been invited to stay with them, but this isn’t really what I want to talk about. What I want to talk about are Waiting Rooms.
Waiting Rooms should be put into the same category as Death and Taxes: they are unavoidable. Yet we don’t talk about them, and they don’t get reviewed in the local paper.
As everyone knows, Waiting Rooms boil down to two things: Magazines and Wait Time. If there is a waiting room in Hell–okay, of course there’s a waiting room in Hell–it will be something like this:
You walk into a lime-colored room the size of Costco, or maybe Rhode Island, full of folding chairs from the basement of a Methodist church. You take a number and sit down.
A cheery, female voice echos from the front desk just over the horizon, “Number eleven? Number eleven?” You look down at your number. It’s number 11,279,302. You are, of course, the only person in the room.
“Number twelve? Number twelve?” the voice says, pleasantly.
You look at the fake-wood-laminated lamp stand, and there are two dog-eared magazines: Highlights, and AARP Magazine. From 1981.
“Number 13? Number 13?”
And that is when it hits you: Hell really sucks.
If Satan is out of the office for the week, you might find a copy of Sunset, too.