How to Survive Your Doctor's Waiting Room

By Contributor

September 2, 2011

Samantha P., some of these survival tips sound suspiciously like waiter's revenge. –Sparkitors

My dad always tried to convince me to be a soccer player. So, I took up softball. Looking back now, however, I think I know why he advised me to pursue the kicking sport: because of my tendency to kick doctors if they dared get too close to me with a needle or a tongue depressor. After years of being held down by teams of nurses, I slowly began to realize the stupidity and wasted effort I was causing.

But I am convinced that somewhere on my top-secret medical file the words "TO BE PUNISHED" are scribbled. My proof? The unbearable waiting period I undergo before each and every appointment. In case you, too, were a doctor's-office problem child, I've devised this list of ways to pass the eons of time spent waiting in the doctor's office:

-Stay out of the lobby until called. The reruns of children’s shows playing inside are more traumatizing than the screams of a 2-year-old getting shots next door.

-Avoid touching (though they're tempting) the ancient toys located in a corner of the office lobby. They will surely give you an illness far worse than whatever sent you to the doctor in the first place.

-Imagine that you’re in a line for a ride at Disney, as the wait times are just about the same.

-Guess what month/year the stacks of creepily-wrinkled People magazines were printed just by looking at the covers.

-Be a rebel and roll around in the doctor’s swivel chair. Just don’t get caught.

-Bring a Sharpie and color on the weird white paper they put over the operating table thingy, and wonder how much they waste each year. Surely some kindergarten class would love to draw on that paper!

-Realize this issue with the paper means that your doctor is in fact not eco-friendly and panic: what other dark secrets is s/he hiding?!? (Organ harvesting, probably.)

-Eavesdrop on what the nurses are saying as they walk by, and hope your doctor doesn’t choose to walk in at the very moment you've shoved your ear to the door, otherwise you’ll be referred to another doctor and go through the same waiting-room agony AGAIN.

-Stare at the Hazardous Waste box, wondering what's really inside.

-Take some of the free disease pamphlets just to throw them away later. They wasted your time, so you waste their pamphlets.

-Stare at the tongue depressor, try not to cry.

-Pretend the continuous screams coming from the next room don’t bother you at all.

-Write a SparkLife article in your head, then forget every word of it when your doctor walks through the door.

How do you kill time in the doctor's office?