I took time this Friday morning to take my daughter, who’s nine, to doctor and dentist checkups.  As we went out the door to drop the other kids at school, I told them to get their raincoats. The older boys looked at me in dismay. I never asked them if they didn’t have raincoats or if they did and didn’t think it would be cool to wear them, but just let them get in the car in their shirtsleeves as the rain began to pour.

After dropping the other kids at school, my daughter and I trundled along through the downpour and puddles to her appointment. The doctor’s office is not unattractive, with roller roaster toys and framed prints on the walls, but we have to wait, as always, a seemingly interminable time and in the company of a bunch of other people who can best be described as resigned, grumpy, or tense and fearful.

This is the kind of place that you march yourself down to and then discipline yourself to keep from stomping out the door in disgust and dismay, muttering angrily.

“When are they going to see us?” my daughter asks.

“It usually takes an hour to get a room,” I tell her.

Sometimes I get mad and show up late myself, thinking that by arriving 15 minutes behind my time I might cut 15 off the wait, but it doesn’t work. They just make you wait even longer. Today, I decided to show up early and see if that helps.

It doesn’t. I am still sitting here, we’ve been here an hour, with the rain washing down outside. I imagine telling the doctor my time is too valuable for this — or correspondingly asking why they do this to me every time I show up? Part of me thinks they don’t do this on purpose, and part of me thinks they do, and part of me just doesn’t want to know.

After one hour and ten minutes, we finally get a room. To the doctor’s credit, a med student comes in and spends some time with my daughter talking about her fatophobia, and then the doctor herself quickly examines her and sends us on our way. Total elapsed time in the office? One hour 40 minutes. We head off to have lunch at the Coffee Urn on Trail Lake Blvd, in the pouring rain, and I wonder as I drive why so much of life is tedium. I could enjoy this rain if I wasn’t doesn’t stuff I didn’t want to do. But perhaps going out to lunch will work out better than the doctor’s office.