Julia and the Waiting Room

I'll do one of the morals of today's story right now - don't drop heavy objects on your foot. It doesn't matter if you're wearing steel toes if the object is dropped even a mere inch behind it.

My foot might be broken - x-rays come back on friday - and until then, rest and ice are the doctor's orders. At any rate, this backdrop serves to explain how I found myself at the Glenmore Landing offices of MYK Radiology, where, as divine appointment would have it, I ran into Julia. More correctly, I was already sitting and waiting to be called when she walked in.

We've all been in waiting rooms, right? No one says boo to anyone else, you rarely establish eye contact with anyone, and it's considered rude to talk louder than a whisper . . . and you BETTER not be talking to yourself when you DO whisper.

I'm not one for societal norms. My rather loud " HI GUYS!" to the full waiting room was met with the expected quick, stern looks, followed by equally quick averting of the gaze lest my eyes burn a hole in their cranial space. Death by occular combustion. I wish I had that power. So, sensing that no one was in the talking mood, I provided ny info, took an empty seat ( THE empty seat), and proceeded to stare at the wall. I wanted to know what everyone else found so interesting.

HEre's my thing : there were about 7 of us there in this tiny waiting room, all made in the image of God, all incredibly wonderful in our own unique way, with stories of our OWN lives that would fill a few eternities each . . . and we sat there like rocks, saying nothing. In the words of BRad Pitt in Inglorious Basterds - " That, I cannot abide."

So when Julia walked in, I decided that her and I would play a game. She seemed young enough to be trusting and old enough to have sat in enough waiting rooms to be as tired as I was of this whole silent treatment.

Staring at her until I knew she knew that I KNEW she knew I was trying to say soemthing, I did.

" Wanna play a game of I Spy?"

And so began a delightful 15 minute conversation ranging from how we hurt ourselves to where we're from to our views on the rules of I spy ( she took offense to the fact that I had said "blue" and guessed my own eyes . . . apparently if you can't see it, you can't guess it. Boo.) It was fun, it was joyous . . . it was refreshingly human.

I dare anyone who reads this to start a conversation in a traditional "no conversation zone" . . . be it a doctor's waiting room, a line at a cash register or ATM, a red light while walking, or any other place where we try our best to ignore the wonderful creations beside us and focus really really hard on how impatient we are to get out of wherever we happen to be.

Take it as an opportunity to get to know someone that God loves very very much . . . maybe you'll discover what He sees in them :)