Let's Give Mom a Hand

So I went to this hand clinic because I had to sign up for physical therapy for my broken finger. The waiting room is like the size of an elevator. Yet there are 15 chairs in there. I squeeze into one, and no matter which way I sit, my knees are almost touching another chair. I've been feeling this way alot lately, but if I'm smashed in an elevator, or in a small room with people I have just long enough to think, "Are these the people I'm going to die with?" Maybe cause I live in LA where we're always one moment short of the worst earthquake on Earth, or maybe it's cause I'm old or maybe it's because I keep falling off horses and tempting death. I've been to the edge. And then my horse keeps trying to buck me in.

Anyway, I'm in this tiny room waiting for them to call me with all my names, it's very confusing, the married name, the reguar name. And then as I'm waiting, EVERY fat person in LA comes inside this little room and wants to sit down. I'm not saying a little fat, like you should start jogging or eat yogurt. I'm talking, this lady tries to get by me and I have to crawl up on my seat so she can get her trash barrel legs through. And then I'm looking at the chair she's going to sit on and I'm thinking oh man, no way she's gonna wedge into that, it's like a rowboat and she's the whole Titanic. She sits down and it's like THWUMP, she fits in and there is no way she's getting out. I hope she has a wedding coming up, because she already has her outfit, it's that chair.

Then there's this kid across from me (our knees are touching) who is too old to be there with his mom, he's like 23, and he's eating Skittles and singing a song about pizza from Sponge Bob (that I happen to know) so I know how he spent his morning, a candy stop at 7-11 after watching cartoons, and he's just piling in the Skittles even though he's sure not gonna be running them off later, and then he chokes. He inhales a Skittle. Luckily we're in a hospital, but mostly I'm mad cause I would really like a Skittle. His mom slaps his back, and it's like watching a walrus show. He finally catches his breath and says, wheezing, "I blame Skittles. Because they make them so delicious."

Two old ladies come to look at my hand without bothering to take me into another room - why go to another room when this one is so crowded? I'm not sure they're physical therapists, they look like librarians from a haunted library. One of them keeps saying, "Why are these fingers taped together?" I say, "The doctor did it. He said it was like a splint, using one finger with the sore finger." She says, "Is that they way you're supposed to do it?" I say,"Um, YOU'RE the doctor, I don't know!" So she basically says nothing, I make another appointment for 3 weeks from now, I have to go up to another room where they need all my information, which includes my religious preference in case I need a vicar while doing hand exercises with librarians.

The only good thing about walking out of the hospital is seeing people much worse off than you. Like the guy in the elevator with like no pants on and an eye covered with a plastic cup.

I head to go pick up the kids from school, armed with my appointment to help make it all better, and stop at the little hardware store that sells baby chicks so I can get 2, because little farm animals that can't buck you off and cost 2 dollars make everything better.