Pediatric Waiting Room

Yesterday I waited for an hour and a half in our pediatric doctor's waiting room only to be shuffled to the examining room for another 15 minute wait before being seen. It's hard not to begin making interesting observations when you're in a small room with a group of people for that long. What I have found that most pediatric waiting rooms have what are called stock characters. Here are a few of some of the reocurring ones I seem to see time and again. Feel free to add some of your own.
1. Naive Naomi. Naive Naomi just had a baby 2 weeks ago. She looks a little tired, but she is easily identified because of the pristine shape of all of her baby gear--the diaper bag looks as if she just pulled the tags off of it this morning before she came, the child is dressed as if she's taking him to a magazine shoot--hat, shoes, the whole nine yards. She tends to want to ask everyone in the room how old their child is, how much they weighed when they were in born, and somehow, without a bit of inhibition she tells her entire labor and delivery story to the whole room before we escape to an examination room. When asked how her baby is doing, Naive Naomi says, "He's sleeping pretty good right now. I think he'll be sleeping through the night very soon." When Naive Naomi hears a baby screaming from the examining room areas, she looks disturbed and says, "Oh my. Someone's upset." One of the moms with three of her four children there with her says, "Probably got a vaccination shot." Naive Naomi loses the color in her face and clutches the child to her chest.
2. Burn-out Betty. Burn-out Betty hasn't had a warm meal in over a decade (as my brother-in-law Brad always jokes). She sits in a corner chair rocking her infant (number 4) in the carseat on the floor with her right foot while attempting to steal a moment for herself in the waiting room. She has somehow managed to completely zone out the chaos around her as she voraciously reads a two year old Reader's Digest. She wipes noses of her two and four year old toddlers without looking up from the pages of the magazine. Her toddlers have found the waiting room to be a place of great freedom. They climb up on top of chairs and tables and innocently make the rounds of all the infant carrier seats in the room, poking their little germie fingers into the face of the other-wise healthy infants. Burn-out Betty might occassionally yell their names out, but she's obviously decided she's worn out with chasing them around. Too bad Burn-out Betty's oldest child is in school today, because we begin to get the feeling that Burn-out Betty depends upon her help in these kinds of situations regularly. Burn-out Betty will always be a story-topper. You know the type? So when Naive Naomi tells her labor and delivery story, she was really in for it when Burn-out Betty started in with, "You think that was a tough labor and delivery?....." We all begin to understand and pitty Burn-out Betty by the end of her her M.A.S.H.-like delivery story.
3.Perplexed Papa. Perplexed Papa has that deer-in-the-headlights kind of look. This is his first visit to the pediatric doctor's office alone with this 8 month old son, but he had to bring him in by himself, because his dear wife is sick in bed at home. He brought the diaper bag, but because he feels so strange holding a purse-like object, he carries it around like it is a bag of trash containing something unpleasantly odiferous, and after he signs in, he gets called back to the sliding glass window 5 times because he didn't fill out some paperwork properly. When asked what his co-pay is, Perplexed Papa looks particularly perplexed, and says, "My wife didn't tell me about a co-pay." He holds his sick 8 month old on his hip all the while unaware that the child's nose is running like a faucet. He wiggles in his seat uncomfortably through the labor and delivery stories, and when he finally gets called back to see the doctor, he dashes for the open door like a prisoner being set free.
4.Christian Krishanni. I love Christian Krishanni. She has a contagious smile, and she's wearing a shirt that looks like it has the Arm and Hammer logo on it, but instead of saying "Arm and Hammer" it says "Armed and Ready" and the arm pictured in the center of the logo is clutching a Bible. Underneath the logo there is a scripture and on the back of her shirt it says, "Come worship with me at New Hope Revival Holy Ghost Ebenezer Church!" Christian Krishanni is very warm and patient with all of the children in the waiting room...for the first 45 minutes of so. She's there with her pre-teen daughter who languishes on her lap asking periodically, "When is it going to be our turn, Mom?" Christian Krishanni responds graciously to her daughter for the first leg of the wait by saying things like, "I guess the doctor must've had an emergency and got behind this morning...Maybe they're just especially busy this morning...I'm sure they'll see us soon..." But even Christian Krishanni begins to lose her patience after she's waited patiently for close to an hour in that chaotic waiting room. I begin to envision the bulging bicep from Christian Krishanni's Arm and Hammer-like t-shirt logo K.O.ing the receptionist and then Christian Krishanni is surrounded by Kirk Franklin's back-up singers and they're all singing and dancing to his song "Stomp". We hear Christian Krishanni's voice trailing down the hallway singing the lyrics, "Lately, I been goin' through somethin' that's really got me down....." We all wish we were leaving with her.
5.Doormat Donna. Doormat Donna is a working mom who really doesn't regularly spend much time with her child, but her kindergartener is sick today, and so she's spending her morning in the pediatric office. She looks a little out of place in her power-suit and high, pointy heels, and regularly you wouldn't ever think she would be Doormat Donna--not in the professional world anyway, but when it comes to her little 5 year old sweetie-pie, Doormat Donna truly earns her name. Doormat Donna, bless her heart, is still trying to run her office from the pediatric waiting room with the help of her blackberry. Meanwhile 5 year old sweetie-pie is whining and fussing, and everyone in the room knows just how hungry 5 year old sweetie-pie is within a matter of minutes. "I'm hungry, Momma!! I'm realllllly hungry! Why didn't you feed me breakfast? I'm starving! When are we leaving? Moooooommmmmmmmmaaaaaa!!!!" Doormat Donna, meanwhile, leaves several people confused for a few moments because it seems as if she might be trying to engage us in conversation, and just as I begin to stupidly respond to her, she turns her head a little to show me her blue-tooth contraption stuck in her ear. I turn a little red and feel foolish. The drama continues, and Donna begins digging in her enormous purse for something to distract little sweetie-pie. Out tumbles a box of Dexatrim, a case of Altoids, her Gucci sunglasses and finally at the bottom, what she thinks is going to be her saving grace....tadahhh...the Nintendo gameboy thing! She gets a huge look of relief, tosses it in the lap of sweetie pie, and continues like a steamroller sealing the deal with this client on the phone. Doormat Donna hasn't been listening to 5 year-old sweetie pie, though, and she doesn't know she's not interested in the Nintendo! She is hungry! Finally the child takes the mother's chin in her hands and says, "I want something to eat, NOW!" She tosses the gameboy back into the large, hobo style, gold lame bag, scoops 5 year-old sweetie pie onto her hip, continuing the conversation, heads to the hallway, and returns moments later with sweetie pie nursing a large Mountain Dew and a jumbo bag of M&M's purchased from a vending machine down the hall. Just what the room needed. A dose of extreme caffeine and sugar!

Well, there are more I could describe, but I'd better end here. I'd love for you to add some of your favorite waiting room stock characters.