Another Doctor's Office

The nurses in the doctor's office are cheerful this morning.  The doctor is late coming in, and the nurses tell the patients that he will be in as soon he gets out of surgery.  

Meanwhile the receptionist, a young Asian woman with a ponytail, is busy answering phone calls.  In between calls, she pulls on her rubber gloves to gingerly pick up a plastic ziplock baggie with someone's specimen in a cylinder inside.  She holds the baggie by its very edge and at arm's length to take it into the back and out of sight.

A bowlegged man in his sixties comes in and stands at the receptionist's window waiting for her return. Beside the window is a long picture frame with a 'Peanuts' comic strip in it.  The edge of the frame extends several inches over the frosted glass of the receptionist's window.  Whoever had put the frame up evidently misjudged its width but had made no attempt to reposition it.

When the receptionist is seated once again, after having exchanged a number of light-hearted and non-work-related remarks with the cheerful nurses, and taken a bite of some confection that one of her office mates has brought in to share, she turns to the waiting man and asks him if he has still the same address, phone number, and medical insurance coverage that are shown on his chart.  He grunts in assent, in a voice that is barely audible.

On the other walls in the waiting room are mediocre art reproductions — one is of a pinkish sunlit terrace with a balustrade overlooking what appears to be a Mediterranean town, a boat marina in the distance, some flowers in urns in the foreground.  The perspective is poorly rendered, the buildings having a vanishing point that does not correspond with that of the yacht-filled marina in the background; it is not an intentional distortion of the scene, it is simply poor drawing.

The magazines in the waiting room are several months old.  On a low table in a corner of the room is a tray with a small stack of paper, on each of which is a photocopy of a word puzzle, and next to it a pencil holder with five or six stubby yellow pencils.  These waiting room accessories suggest that waiting there can be a lengthy process.

In the examination room, where one is finally admitted after having been weighed, there are a chair, a stool for the doctor, an examination table with a pull-out extension, and upper and lower cupboards against one wall with a Formica countertop surmounting the lower cupboard.  On the wall by the examination table is attached a wire frame holding the blood-pressure measuring sleeve, and the blood-pressure gauge next to it.

On the countertop are glass jars with metal lids — they contain cottonwool balls, wooden tongue depressors, and Q-tips.  Next to them are a bottle of alcohol, a flashlight, a stethoscope, and brochures about various ailments in which the doctor is specialized. There are no magazines in the examination room.

On the wall opposite the door is a large plastic relief map of the human torso, with its entire gastrointestinal system exposed, and each gland, organ, and feature identified. Diseased components are shown in fine rosy, purplish, or bilious yellow detail.

It is many minutes before the doctos shows up.