The stitches come out

So, on Wednesday I went back to the discount doctor to get my stitches taken out. I personally think it was too soon to have them out, but whatever, he went to, like, online med school and knows better than me.

As I was getting out of the car, I realized to my horror that I had forgotten my book. ("In Cold Blood" -- I highly recommend it.) This was absolutely tragic, as now I would have nothing to distract me from the running, jumping, screaming hoard of wildebeasts all hopped up on Coke and chocolate that was inevitably occupying the waiting room. God DAMN it.

I could hear the shrieking as I walked out of the elevator, and my suspicions were confirmed. Children. Children piled on top of children. Children spilling out into the hall. Multiplying before my eyes, like the bunnies in that one MasterCard commercial.

I have to make it clear that I don't dislike children, usually. I think they're a hoot and a holler, and I often have the urge to borrow someone's kid and take it to the park where we would swing, and eat ice cream from the ice-cream man, and build things out of sand. (Of course, at the thought of having my own kid I am overwhelmed with sweat and start to hyperventilate a little... maybe that's something I'll grow out of.) But when I am trapped in a tiny, smelly waiting room with roughly a thousand misbehaving children, I cannot help but picture myself kicking them and then laughing maniacally as they hit the floor with a thud.

I gently elbowed some kids aside and wedged myself into a corner of the waiting room, where I had over an hour in which to observe the following:

A woman with 6 children who was so pregnant I kept waiting for #7 to shoot straight out of her loins. (Which worried me, because I was directly in the line of fire. If I were her I'd probably seal my business off with some duct tape or something.)

A child, maybe 4 years old (who can tell?), turning pages in a National Geographic about sea life and shouting "Nemo-Shark!" over and over. And overandoverandover. (actually, that was a little bit cute)

A crazy old lady wearing a big-brimmed straw hat with fake flowers super-glued onto it, a denim shirt with a giant Mickey Mouse bedazzled in silver on the back of it, and velcro shoes. And these weren't ironic velcro shoes, mind you. They were being worn in complete earnest.

A mom whose daughter kept picking up her baby brother from his stroller, shoving her nose in his diapered butt crack and saying loudly, "Wheeeeew, yeah, he poo pooed. I think he needs to be changed. Stinky stinky!" GOLD STAR TO YOU, little one. Don't think the rest of us haven't noticed -- that is why I am melting your mother's skin off with my fiery stare as she sits on her gargantuan ass not doing anything about it.

A super old dude, probably eleventy-two or so, reading an issue of Every Woman magazine.

One of the six kids I first mentioned, we'll call him #4, had a neck tattoo. Now, I have a hard time believing a 6-year-old has a REAL neck tattoo, but this thing looked absolutely legit. I'm pretty sure he just got out of juvey for popping a cap in some 1st grader's ass on the tetherball court.

Butt-sniffer girl started singing, at the top of her lungs, "I BELIEVE IN JEEEEESUUUUUS!" except she had some weird lisp-y thing going on, so it sounded like, "I BELIEVE IN GZEEEESZSHUUUUUUSS!" Just that one line, loudly and continuously. Then, when she tired of that, she moved on to "HAAALAAAYLOOOOOOOOYAH!" Again and again and again, infinity.

I think the nurses could tell I was about to go fetal and start rocking and humming, so they called me back to see the doctor. He snipped my stitches, which kind of hurt, and then he put tape over the cut. TAPE. Doc, should you really be taping up your patients? Is that what they taught you at www.YouCanBeADoctorToo.com? I'm not made out of construction paper and pipecleaners, asshole.

Luckily, I don't have to go back there EVER AGAIN. Except in my nightmares.