Friday

On a busy Friday morning, the waiting room in the hospital's lab services department is standing-room-only for the patients (who richly deserve their name). You need to pull a number from a red machine, then wait for the number to be called, at which time you approach a female clerk at one of several windows to present your paperwork. The sign on the wall says: To maintain patients' privacy, please remain seated until your number is called. The clerk confirms some requisite information about you, particularly about your insurance coverage, and then orders you to sit until your name is called.

Having your blood sample drawn for a test is no big deal, but when there's a lot of people waiting and milling around, some confusion will occur. A man thinks his name is called, either because the technician calling out his name has an accent or can't pronounce the name clearly, and he gets up, only to discover that a second man—the right party—has also risen to his feet after the technician tried pronouncing again, and got it almost correct the second time.

A Chinese woman of advanced years, frumpily dressed and holding a walking stick, converses in strident tones with a younger man, seemingly not a relative, sitting beside her with his attention fixed on the television near the ceiling. The woman wears an incongruous red lipstick, quite out of sync with her age and her attire.

The population in the waiting room is approximately half white and half minorities, and perhaps half of both groups are native-born and half foreign-born. Which you may reasonably guess are the approximate ratios of the population of the Great State of California, whose elected Governor is an immigrant of Austrian birth and accent.