My waiting room neighbors seemed normal enough, germy but normal. I picked up a WebMD magazine and prepared to start self-diagnosing when I noticed a woman cough her way through the door. She was wearing baby blue flannel pajama pants with penguins all over them and they were backwards, allowing the silver sparkly drawstrings to outline her butt crack. She also seemed to have forgotten to wear shoes...to a doctor’s office. To make matters worse, she was wearing a red and green shirt with an animated owl on it that read, “Owl I want for Christmas is you.” I hated her instantly yet I was jealous of her. The front desk had given her one of those face masks that made her look like that one emojicon that you never need to use. Her coverall-clad mother and two year old daughter, Arielle, had accompanied her and they picked a seat right next to mine. Arielle immediately spilled her McDonald’s french fries on the floor and started eating them. For a second I thought Pajama Pants was going to stop her daughter, but instead she just asked her if she remembered how to get home. PJs seemed to have forgotten. The question made sense; after all she was almost two years of age…she should know that.
I, then, became intensely aware of the other people around me listening closely to every conversation. It turned out to be a circus in there. A raspy voice, soaked in hickish undertones, caught my ear next. “It’s like man porn, babe,” I heard him say. This confused me. Isn’t regular porn supposed to be “man porn?” I turned around to see a man in head-to-toe OSU gear and fur insulated Crocs holding up a picture of a goat on his iPhone to show his voluptuous and hairy looking wife. She just laughed and shook her head. “Boys and their toys"' she muttered to a terrified looking newlywed couple. I was unaware that livestock could be so erotic. Then, Croc-man started talking to them about how his ex-wife recently bought a gun and that he was scared she was going to kill him. Noticing that the couple couldn’t relate to that issue he tried a different social angle, he snickered and said he was excited to take his daughter to the Justin Beiber/Carly Rae Jepson concert. He winked at the nauseous looking pair and said “brownie point sex.” His wife just smiled and tenderly touched his leg. I immediately went to sit by the newlyweds, they had been through as much as I had at this point and we needed each other. The woman was wearing an approachable looking Ann Taylor Loft outfit and her husband was mildy good looking. Well, not really good-looking, but they both looked clean. We made a lot of “this place, right?” eye contact. We didn’t talk or anything but we were both exchanging auras of classiness and social awareness and that was comforting. Things seemed to be going really well until I heard Ann Taylor Loft shriek. It turns out Pajama Pants had run outside, instead of to the bathroom, and was now barfing violently in front of the window directly behind us while Arielle stood and clapped. I admired the clapping a bit. I think its important that every bodily function be rewarded, but I still couldn’t get over her shoeless ways. We watched, regretfully, as PJs straightened, walked back inside, and started eating a cheese stick underneath her mask. Just when I thought it absolutely couldn’t get any worse, I noticed a little boy crying and a toothless woman comforting him. “Sweetie, your brother is at the doctor because he has a big, big hole in his arm. Gammy could stick her finger right through it and touch all way to his bone!” She then made a motion like she was screwing something into a wall. The boy screamed and ran from his grandmother with a look of sheer terror.
Finally they called my name…I looked back at the newlyweds to say my goodbyes and though they didn’t say anything, I took their look to mean, “go on, Katherine, get! Go live. Go live for all of us.” That’s exactly what I did.
