Olan L. Smith's Short Stories

The Waiting Room

©2016, Olan L. Smith

I was on time for the podiatrist as I walked up to the receptionist's window. "Am I on time?" I asked winded. She doesn't answer, rather shuffles papers before looking up; I glance at my watch; it is 2:12 pm and I know I am a few minutes ahead of time. "Do you need my insurance cards?"

That gets her attention; "Not unless they have changed, have they?"

"No, they are the same," I answer her. She hands me a clipboard with the usual questionnaire, and a pen, with a plastic spoon taped to it, afraid their patients will forget and pocket said pen; the spoon is a reminder not to steal. I found a chair in their small waiting room, and the air smells just a tad like disinfectant that lingers; I hope they sprayed the chairs. All those stranger's butts have to leave a distinct odor. I begin to fill out the questionnaire, name, address, email address, surgeries, and my favorite list is medications. At my age my medications have long ago outnumbered my digits on my hands and feet, but not quite as many as hairs left on my head, though if the male pattern baldness continues as it has it won't be long before the number of medications I take catches up to the number of hairs remaining. Most of the blanks on the questionnaire I write, "See list," as I have a neat medication list already filled out for my doctors. I walk up to the window, hand her the clipboard, and every so carefully display that I did not take her "spoon-pen," and I walk back to my seat. I am the only patient waiting.

I grab a magazine from the end table to read, and begin to flip through the pages of advertisements to find one of the few articles in the rag, when I hear voices, an old man and a woman who is obviously his daughter appearing from behind a closed door. He is pushing what looks like a wheeled walker/oxygen-carrier combination; to aid him, he is stooped. She carefully holds his arm and they are seated directly across the room from me―we are fifteen feet apart. Surprisingly, his voice is loud, distinct, and distinguished. "Do I need my card?" he asks.

His daughter answers. "No."

He looks across the room directly at me. I am not sure if he sees me. He stretches out his legs and looks at his feet. "I am lucky to have them. I almost lost them at twenty thousand feet. Oh boy, I sure was lucky wasn't I?" She nods her head in agreement. "That was almost fifty years ago," he continues to look at his feet in amazement, almost like he can't believe they are still attached. "That was a close one." I wonder if he must have been a gunner in the Air force, perhaps the Korean War. I returned to my magazine.

"Seventy-five years ago...." She suddenly blurts out.

He replies, "Huh?"

"Seventy-five years ago, Pop, it was 75 years ago."

He answers, "Oh, that's right. Do I need my card?"

"No, you don't need your card."

He looks back down at his feet. "I sure am lucky to have them. Almost lost them. I can't believe I didn't lose them seventy some years ago, I was just a young whippersnapper." Aha, I think to myself, it's WWII he is remembering. He doesn't look that old. If he was eighteen in 1941 that would make him, let see, that would make him...eight minus one is three, borrow the one from the four, minus one leaves 1923, I think. He is my uncle's age.

He fumbles around with his pocket. "You have my keys?" He asks her.

She replies, "Yes, I have your keys?"