Everyday Canvas

Oh, Those Things That Take Too Long!

Prompt: What things in life take too long?

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For me, anything medical takes too long, or it feels like it. To start with, doctors’ waiting rooms are at the top of the list. The only place I wait the least amount of time is my primary physician’s and dentist’s waiting rooms.

The most waiting-time-Nobel-Prize goes to my ophthalmologist. For that reason alone, I ask for appointments around 3 PM. That way the wait will be no more than two to three hours. Funny, but I have seen people go berserk in that place. My husband wants to go to a different ophthalmologist just for that reason, but I resist because this office is so near our home and, should push come to shove, and one of us would have to drive with dilated pupils and alone, it is better to have the eye doctor’s office nearby. Right now, we drive each other. When it is hubby’s appointment, I go with my Kindle in my purse. Several times I finished reading two books in one sitting.

But enough about doctors’ offices. The next worst thing can be getting in and out of airplanes, but that depends on the country and the airport. Where I am, PBI airport is very efficient and customer friendly. I can’t complain.

Another thing that used to take too long were the traffic jams. It took troopers several hours to open up a freeway especially after an accident, but where I live now, it doesn’t happen at all or maybe not as much. I know this occurs quite often in other more active cities, however.

Sometimes, lectures and conferences take too long. Once upon a time, my hubby fell asleep. At his first snore, I punched his leg, so we wouldn’t look like two fools. We may be two fools for attending such things, but at least, I thought then, we should save face. Yet, talking about snoring and such, falling asleep at night may take too long, but that, too, I learned to come to terms with. I make up bed-time stories for me inside my mind, and that problem eventually evaporates into dreamland.

In the more universal arena, government agencies can take too long. That is why I try to avoid them like the plague. Then, there is that big, dome-topped building in Washington, where congress takes too long to do anything, or rather, nothing. Anyway, this doesn’t bother me as much, since inside my mind I regard that place as a low-grade museum where nothing and no one can move, kind of like the Egyptian pyramids with mummies inside.

After all is said and done, I trust what Dalai Lama says, more than the acts of mummies and some people who make me wait too long. “Don’t let the behavior of others destroy your inner peace.”