The Waiting Room Blues

Don't you get nervous when someone starts out a sentence by saying, "I don't mean to complain but..."? You just KNOW that the next 20 minutes is not going to be fun and games.
Maybe in my case of describing my latest uncomfortable experience, it would be better if I just charged right to the point and said, "I hate waiting rooms at Doctors offices!"
I recently took my niece, Annie and her new-born to the infant's first pediatrician appointment. The Doctor's office asked them to arrive 30 minutes early to complete "new patient" paperwork. We had to leave at 6:45 a.m. (yes, as in MORNING)for a 7:45 appointment. This made no sense to me since her other two children are already patients. Wouldn't it be reasonable that the only change on their records is the name of the new little darling they are going to coo over?
O.K. So, we arrive bleary-eyed at our scheduled time. The waiting room is as big as a grade school cafeteria as they have 5 different specialties here. There were nine windows from which to choose to check in. Above two of them signs hung reading, Happy 1 and Happy 2. Of course, no one was at those windows. (It actually reminded me of a race track's betting windows but that's another story).

Annie returns from checking in with only ONE page with THREE highlighted areas to be completed. It took her all of about 45 seconds ~ and only THAT LONG because I interrupted her 4 times to grouse about coming in 30 minutes early for that!??!

We only waited 10 minutes past her appointed time before she was called back to the Doctor's office. I breathed a premature sigh of relief thinking that surely they would return in 15 minutes and I can go home and go back to bed. After all, we HAD to be one of the first appointments at 7:45 a.m. and how long can one take to look over an 8 pound baby?

OVER AN HOUR later I have counted all 92 seats in the waiting room. I have watched (TEN times) the 12" TV that kept a 4-minute video loop playing a boring narrative about the wonderful medical facilities that we were lucky enough to enjoy.
I have read through all of the six tattered magazines that were lying around. I was lucky in that one Reader's Digest was only 5 months old. Three of the magazines were totally written in Spanish and I almost flunked that launguage in high school. I can only remember "Ciera la boca" (shut the mouth).
I did read a Mechanics Made Easy magazine that was published in 1998 that described how I could have fixed the problem I had with my 1997 Chevy that I sold a eight years ago.
Finally, just as I had finished playing my 15th game of solitaire in the children's area (with a deck of 34 cards), Annie comes out carrying her little Parker Elisabeth Murphy, followed by the Doctor, himself. He apologized to me personally for taking so long but he had never seen such a beautiful baby. He had to show her off to all the other patients and then ushered her over to the personnel of the neighboring departments. As he continued to gush over her he looked up at me, then paused and looked down at Parker...then looked back at me and observed, "Actually, she has your beautiful eyes. You can tell that you are related!"

I just sighed...and with a tear in my eye I said,
"and you have a perfectly wonderful waiting room."