Simple hacks to surviving the waiting room of life

There was a mysterious guy who lived in the house directly behind mine and he coughed all the time so I called him Coughing Man (I’m very good at coming up with names for neighbours, it’s almost a gift). I never met him, never saw him, but I heard him: every day he’d stand beside our shared back fence and make horrible lung-busting achhhh achhhhh noises – it made me feel anxious, like I might need to jump the fence and perform an emergency tracheotomy with a Stanley knife and a Bic pen.

One day I couldn’t stand the sound anymore; I went to the back fence and said “Hey, if you’re sick, go see a doctor” and a sad, strained voice mumbled back “I did”. After that I didn’t bother Coughing Man anymore, I felt really bad for him – then a few months later the coughing miraculously stopped, so either Coughing Man got better, or Coughing Man became Coffin Man.

I seem to have developed a horrible achhh achhh cough of my own.Credit:iStock

Anyway, Coughing Man got his revenge: I seem to have developed a horrible achhh achhh cough of my own – I have become Hacky Boy. One morning I was coughing in my backyard and I heard a sad, strained voice say “Hey, if you’re sick, go see a doctor”. It was Coughing Man, talking to me from the otherworld. Or it may have been my other neighbour, Gout Guy. Either way, it was good advice – I went to see a doctor.

Which is how I’ve now become a world authority on medical waiting rooms (Bachelor of Sitting. Master of Yawning. Phd in Looking Up Hopefully Everytime A Doctor Strolls Into The Waiting Room But Then They Always Stroll Back Into Their Offices, Taunting Us, Jerks).

The GP’s Waiting Room. Spacious but overcrowded, with everyone smooshed up on one side of the room and a single person sitting alone on the other side (me, The Waiting Room Leper, making lung-busting achhh achhh noises). The wait is agonisingly long: aeons pass, suns are born, galaxies die, and all you’ve done is count the zigzags on the zigzag-patterned carpet, wondering why there are more zigs than zags. Even the reading material makes you feel like life is passing: just Royal Autos from 2009 and for a moment you think “Wow, have I been waiting 12 years? Guess they’re double booking.”

The Pathology Clinic Waiting Room. A smaller waiting room with just seven chairs, six filled with humans, one with some kind of green secretion, so you’re happy to stand. No reading material, but for entertainment, check out the Sample-Jar Drop-Off Tray on the reception desk and enjoy a stunning array of colours and viscosities. You can even play a fun game of “What Came Out Of Where?” Very challenging (purple had me stumped).

I’ve now become a world authority on medical waiting rooms.Credit:David Porter

The X-Ray Centre Waiting Room. The smallest and most depressing waiting room. Just two chairs, a broken service bell, and the smell of electromagnetism in the air. You may prefer to just cower in a corner, holding your doctor’s referral over your face as an improvised radiation shield, and your Medicare card over your groin.

The Specialist’s Waiting Room. The longest wait of all – several weeks, mostly at home, the last hour here. But very swish: a watercooler, a children’s play zone, and zigzag carpeting where the zigs and zags add up perfectly. That’s what you’re paying the big bucks for: quality carpet. And approximately 412 reception staff squished behind a counter.

Turns out, I have “post-nasal drip”, which is as disgusting as it sounds. The specialist prescribed some medicine, sent me home, and now I’m in The Waiting Room of Life, waiting for this bloody cough to go away. And in my head, I’m haunted by the voice of Coughing Man: “Karma’s a … achhhh achhhh … bugger, eh? … achhh achhhh…”

Danny Katz is a Melbourne humorist.

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