How many amusing diversions can you find in an empty doctor’s examination room?
If your answer is, “Why would anyone care?” then the chances are good that you’ve never had to kill time in such a place with a small child.
“Let’s … OK … let’s start by looking out the window,” I began, when the door had closed behind the 5-year-old and me earlier this week. The nurse had warned us that the doctor was delayed. I’d need to string this out.
“Sunshine. Cars. A young man holding an old woman’s arm.”
“Two men on a plank,” said my companion, pointing to a pair of workers who were suspended on a platform doing something to the windows of the building opposite.
“Good spotting!” We looked around the room. There was a computer (off), a chair, an examination table, a stool on wheels, and a small bulletin board bristling with paperwork. Also, some slips of paper explaining the Side Effects of Cortisone.
It wasn’t much to work with, but, as I never tire of telling my children, ’tis a poor craftsman who blames his tools.
We started with the bulletin board.
“What does this spell? N-O?”
“No,” said the child genius.
“Hurrah! How about X-R-A-Y?”
I helped her out: “Exx-rur-aa-ee.”
“Eggs?”
“Not eggs, silly! That’s eh-gg-gg-zz.”
She laughed, and asked about the small box high on a wall used for storing discarded needles.
“Here’s a good one,” I said, touching the side of the box, “Let’s sound it out. D-A-N-G-E-R.”
She sounded it out. What did it spell?
“Sharp! Needles!”
“No, no, sweetie. Letter dee. It makes the sound ‘duh.’ Duh. Duh. Duh!”
The sound of murmuring from an adjoining consultation room suddenly made me comically conscious that I, a grown woman, was standing over a small child saying “Duh.”
We moved on to drawing. Using a sheet of the Side Effects of Cortisone, the child carefully inked a long series of hieroglyphs.
“Look what I wrote,” she said. “Diana is the person of the day. I am her friend. This is the letter E!” She’d drawn a spike with numerous tendrils poking out one side, like half an amoeba.
We did Silly Walks. We had Fun with Wheeled Stools. I found myself eyeing the rubber glove dispenser the way a shipwrecked sailor might regard his hidden reserve of hardtack: a lifesaver if I ran out of other supplies. Rubber gloves are great: you can blow them up into “hands” and wave them. You can partially inflate one and use it as a rooster’s comb, if you’re willing to crow.
At long last, the door opened. The funny thing is, even as I thought, “Phew, it’s about time,” I was struck by a powerful pre-emptive wistfulness.
The day is coming, and soon, when, if I have to go to the doctor my only companions will be a magazine and a cell phone. Long waits won’t be anything like as demanding as they are now — or as much fun.
Meghan Cox Gurdon’s column appears on Sunday and Thursday. She can be contacted at [email protected].
