People Watching

My new pastime is people watching.  This week I had the occasion to spend hours sitting at the hospital during a family surgery.  People watching became the best thing I could find to do.

I watched old people.  I watched young people.  I watched medical personnel.  I watched strange people.  I watched sane people.  I watched what might be insane people.  I watched anyone who crossed my path.

First I will tell you about one of the old people I watched.  There was this little old man in the surgery waiting room.  He scratched so I figured he either had dry skin or bedbugs.  When he moved closer, I moved farther away.  I also had another reason to move when he did.  Before I started fixing him in my sights, he was sitting behind me.  All at once he farted and it was a huge old noisy fart.   It popped and brrrrrr'd and was a ripper, with a hallow and windy sound.  Had it been one of those diarrhea days for this old fart blower, his pants would have been full.

After moving far away, I stared at his face.  All at once this old farter moved his hand to his nose.  Oh no....he picked his nose.  Right in public and in front of God and everyone.  He looked at the result and wiped it on his pants.  Believe me I made sure I never sat in the chair he had been in.  Farts and snot just don't do it for me.

Then came the middle aged woman with dyed red hair done in a 1960's teased and high profile hair do.  She must have itched her head 125 times in an hour.  She would reach up and scratch and then scratch a second time.  I bet she had either cooties or dandruff.  Her fingernails were long and red so I bet with all the scratching, she had to have either a bunch of cooties under her nails or at best a shovel full of dandruff under her long red nails.

The young people were the best.  They came in with their pants hanging below their butts and plainly showed the top of their butt cracks.  There was one group of three boys who were the worst.  Their hair was greasy and long and all boys had pimples on their faces.  Big old juicy pimples with white heads on the pimples which looked like they would pop anytime.  Oh goody, I'm about to be shot across the room with a pimple pop.  How delightful is that!?!  (#%&**$%!!)  So I moved to the right a couple chairs down to avoid the direct contact when those pimples decided they had been in those faces long enough.  The young girls weren't quite so bad.  They just giggled and laughed and got up a lot to go to the restroom and I swear they were flirting with those young pimple faced boys.  ICKY!

One of the other groups of people were the medical people.  The doctors came in with their surgical scrubs still on.  Some still had their blue dust caps on their heads and their feet encased in blue dust catcher covers.  Once they hit the slick hallway, they kind of slid down the hallways rather than stepping cleanly.  A couple of doctors looked like they hadn't slept for a week or maybe they had a few too many drinks the night before and actually had a hangover.  Their eyes were bloodshot, but I will give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they had a tough day cutting and sewing a few bodies.  They stood talking to their patients' family in the middle of the room with about a hundred other totally non-related persons within earshot.  What ever happened to patient privacy????  I heard so many doctor reports, I began to feel I was a part of the other "waiting people's" families.

There I sat for hours.  I wandered how many people were doing what I was doing and were actually watching me.  I didn't fart.  I didn't scratch my head.  I didn't pick my nose. I had my pants covering my butt crack.  My hair was clean and sprayed so it didn't move.  And thank goodness I didn't have any pimples ready to pop.

I sat quietly, reading sometimes, on the computers at other times, snoozing a bit, drinking my coffee or water, eating my candy bar.  But.......I bet every time I moved to a different chair, the other people watchers in the room, probably thought I was a bit weird, because they didn't hear the farts, and see the cracks, nor the pimples so they just didn't know I really had a reason to move.

I certainly hope there isn't a next time for me to sit and wait for hours in a medical facility, but if there is, I'm going to take my camera for prosperity.  I bet I could make some money taking videos of the kinds of people I saw in that waiting area.  Yep, I will.  So watch what you're doing, because I could be sitting around the corner from you.  And I might take your picture or a video. Or at least laugh at your antics.

Old Timer Birthday
For those of you who know and remember Gerald (Stitch") Ishmael, he will be turning 100 on August 20th.  An open house will be held at the Greenview Country Hills Golf Course on August 19th from 2 to 4 pm.  I saw Stitch a few months ago and he is still sharp and knew exactly who I was.  Stop by and wish him a Happy Birthday. I know he will love to hear from you.


We have rain Houston.  Yessir it's raining now on this Thursday afternoon.  The grass is already beginning to green up and I swear has grown at least an inch or two within the last hour.

It probably is way too late for the crops.  Most corn fields look completely dry and ready to harvest with tiny little corn cobs hanging off the stocks, and a lot of stocks bare of corn cobs.  It just wasn't a good year.

Here's to a good rain so we can at least replenish the water wells in the area and so that people can at least feel better.

Happy rain!

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