So, I Was Thinking . . .

I like to read. I’ll read anything you stick in front of me–it doesn’t really matter what. I think I’ve told you before that I can’t just sit around and watch TV; I have to be doing something else as well, like quilting. It’s the same thing with reading. I can’t just sit and eat a bowl of cereal; I need to have the cereal box to read. Or maybe a newspaper if I’m going to be sitting around for awhile. And if the whole missing-kids-on-milk-cartons thing is any indication, I’m not alone.

So then why, when we visit our dentists and Ob/Gyns, do we have to look up at cute posters on the ceiling? Why not tack something up there of more substance; something to take our minds off what else is really going on? Sure, puppies and daisies are sweet, and once upon a time, when we first saw them, we all probably said, “Awwwww, how cute!,” but I’m not 12 years old anymore. So I have to wonder when I lay back on the exam table and see a poster of a kitten doing chin ups on a tree limb with the words, “Hang in There!”, is this some kind of warning that I can look forward to a cold speculum?

What I’d really like to see are the pages of the Connecting Threads catalogue. Yes, I know that might not interest everyone, so I’d settle for the weekly Macy’s ad. Or even the newspaper inserts of the local grocery store ads–I could plan my week’s menu and grocery list at the same time. Multi-tasking.

And mammograms? What if the radiologist posted a great shoe sale ad on the back wall, printed just small enough so that we actually WANTED to lean into the darn machine to get a better look?

If any of you is a doctor or a dentist, works for a doctor or a dentist, or knows a doctor or dentist, please suggest to them that they give us something better to occupy ourselves with while they do whatever it is they feel they need to do to us. Cute posters just don’t cut it. And dentists who want to ask questions while our mouths are full of fingers and equipment? Well, don’t get me started . . . .