Another Day in the Waiting Room

Warning: I am in fine form today. My words are sharp and on target, though far from politically correct. If you want watered-down PC crap, go somewhere else, because I don’t subscribe to that mumbo jumbo.

Today as I walked out of the elevator on the third floor of my doctor’s office, I knew I was in for quite an entertaining wait. There was already a line in the hallway of grumpy old farts, and I do mean grumpy. I was a bit ticked at myself for not being first today, but I soon realized that would not have been possible with this crowd. (Also, I’d like to be clear that not everyone in my book gets the opportunity to be called a “fart” by me; just the crotchety, idle seniors who would be labeled “jerk,” “meanie,” and several derogatory terms in their younger days. They are afforded the niceties of being labeled a “fart” by attaining an amazing age despite their lack of social grace.)

Scanning the hallway, the first one in line was an old bow-legged man, as wide as he was tall, shifting back and forth, hands in pockets, with his wife standing statuesque next to him with her arms crossed. Next to them was a white-haired woman sitting on the floor spouting off her dislike of the situation non-stop.

Thankfully there were two more people buffering me from them, because I sincerely wanted the freedom to laugh to myself over their antics, and they didn’t disappoint my desire for premium material.

The seated woman just kept coming with volley after volley of anti-doctor, anti-society, and anti-Bush statements that took everything I had to both not laugh out loud and tell her how unfounded and idiotic her ideas and feelings were.

[Read more…]

Biting Off More Than I Can Chew

It seemed like a good idea at the time: take 12 hours of classes this summer because they are short semesters and one of them is online. After my first week of summer session, that’s not such a wise thing after all.

Taking that courseload was going to be a sacrifice, and we knew that, but until you take that sacrifice for a test drive, it’s just not possible to get the full effect of what the next 15 weeks were going to be like. This week went like this:

  • Left home at 6:15am Monday, got off at 3:00, got my books, ate dinner, arrived at school, and got home at 9:30pm.
  • Left home at 6:15am Tuesday, got off at 3:00, ate dinner, arrived at school, and got home at 9:20pm.
  • Left home at 6:30am (pretty tired) Wednesday, got off at 3:00, ate dinner, arrived at school, and got home at 9:20pm.
  • Went back to bed to sleep until the last minute and left in a rush at 6:30, got to my desk, logged into the USF website, and dropped my Monday/Wednesday class.

I feel much better now that I’ve done that. I was missing our small group on Mondays, putting in too many hours away from home, spending extra money on gas and eating out, and I could see that for the next 15 weeks I was going to be doing a pretty “average” job at everything and leaving loose ends everywhere.

I can’t operate like that. My plate needs to be full, but I need to be able to clear it on a whim in case other stuff (especially paying stuff) comes up. Nothing like someone saying they want to pay you $1,000 to do something that takes a few evenings to do, but not be able to commit to doing it, right?

So, I’m still taking one online class and one on-campus class each semester session this summer with a 3 week overlap for the two campus classes. Not too bad. Life just got simpler.