Urgent Care Characters

Last night I found myself headed to urgent care at 5:45 at night even though there were Dino Nuggets still in the oven and some yummy steaks waiting in the fridge to be grilled.

Surprisingly I wasn't there for my children. No, I was there for myself. I had woken up yesterday with a...well...let's call it a girly issue. I had a pretty good idea that I had a...well...a...UTI (there I said it) but I had a Valentine party at the Monkey's preschool and two hours worth of soccer practice to endure. The UTI was just going to have to wait.

But the funny thing about UTI's is that they only get worse no matter how much water or cranberry juice to try to drink. And we were leaving the next day for Orange County to watch the team play in a tournament, so I made the quick almost impulsive decision to head to urgent care.

Now, you're probably wondering why I am sharing so much this morning. It's to say this: If you want to people watch, go to an urgent care center. Sitting in the waiting room I saw all sorts of characters.

There was this old man holding court, talking loud enough for the entire valley to hear, spouting his supposed knowledge about newspapers and government and politics. No one was listening or responding to anything that he was saying (he was there by himself) but that didn't stop him from talking. I wondered if he came to urgent care for just a a little company.

There was another man who didn't want his daughter sitting next to his sick wife. His sick wife didn't look sick at all and the daughter, probably about 10 or so, clung to the mother for dear life which annoyed the husband who could only talk about how hungry he was.

There was an old lady who, with her bag of pills, told the receptionist that she wasn't sure why she was there, that her doctor had told her to come.

There was a guy with a bandaged hand, a baby with a big cut in his forehead, and lot of people (like myself) who didn't look sick but seemed to be in some kind of pain.

Instead of reading magazines from 2004 or watching the news, I just stared at everyone. I'm not sure why, but I was so curious to know what brought everyone here on a random Thursday night.

The doctors got me in and out of there pretty quickly (within an hour of arriving which is so totally unheard of) and I could tell that my fellow sick people weren't very pleased with me. But when I woke up this morning feeling better, I couldn't help but wonder what happened to all of those people last night.

Did the old lady figure out was what wrong?

Did that husband ever get to eat?

Did the little baby have to get stitches?

Did the annoying old man ever get anyone to talk back to him?

Who knows. But I pray that they're all okay.