The second to last place I want to be...

I am sitting in a chair that smells of cheetos. The carpet has stains and hardened gum and the trash is overflowing with Subway bags and dirty diapers. The elevator music is almost unbearable; it has that annoying prodiminant flutist that plays a thirty minute solo that makes me Imagine I am at Morrison's or Ryans waiting for the overweight woman to finish being creative with her version of a taco salad when the buffet bins are filled to the brim with perfectly intact taco shells. The air is musty and coming out of a whistling vent on the wall that has been painted so many times you hardly notice the buried screws holding it up. A saleswoman is in the hall discussing her ploy to get free medical advice this afternoon when she drops off samples to the doctor. A woman is glaring at me with a "how dare you" or "you are too old to wear that" as she gives my polo dress the once over. I probably would glare at me too if I was at the end of my third trimester and wearing an entire bolt of fabric. Her husband looks happy, which I'm crediting to the cute young nurse just referred to his wife as "the patient" and him as "daddy." This is what I am surrounded by as I wait for my named to be called, already thirty minutes after my appoinent time, so I can head back to one of the too cold rooms with too rough paper sheets and gowns for an all too familiar procedure. This moment may fall right under my twelve hour Monday, but just above my four hour class tonight on my "shitty ways to start a week" scale.