Monday, October 03, 2005 at 8:28 PM
the waiting game
At present, I am not an entirely well person. So I was at the hospital the other day in a waiting room, waiting to have a test done. And waiting and waiting for about an hour. Like most waiting rooms, there were the five year old magazines and a television set to A&E. They had one of those cop shows on, and because I was overly optimistic about how long I would be there, I neglected to bring a book, and so I was sucked into this show. It was about this little kid (close to my son's age, about 7 or so) who saw his father fatally stab his mother in the chest and then is kidnapped by said father, who when finally cornered by the police, commits suicide by slitting his throat. This just doesn't seem like the best choice of viewing options for a hospital waiting room. Just about anybody who is in a hospital (aside from having to work there) is by definition, anxious. Watching the cop program definitely increased my anxiety. (Ohmygod! That poor kid! That's terrible! I must watch the whole program or things will not turn out ok!) The Price Is Right would be much better waiting room programming. Jeez, even cheesy soaps would be better (I confess, I was very sad when they took Santa Barbara off the air.) Maybe the idea was that they would show stuff that is probably more terrible than most reasons people would have to be in a waiting room so that they forget about their own troubles. Um, yeah, right.
By adriennelibrarian at 8:28 PM
