The Waiting Room

The Waiting Room

Like, I'm sitting in my recliner, listening to New Age Music and look up at the screen on my television to read, “…these new age tracks have light melodic harmonies that will have you feeling at ease.”

And suddenly, I am not at ease at all.

In fact, I an ill-at-ease.

For there is no such thing as “melodic harmonies.”

At least, not in any of the dictionaries of music I ever read.

Either there is a melody, OR a harmony. Melodies are linear and horizontal and harmonies are blocked and vertical in nature.

So, someone at the New Age Music channel needs to get a grip on reality before publishing something that is drivel on the face of it to the public.

The starting point should be for this, as for any argument- the truth.

And I think this is where we fall down on the job so often.

To paraphrase Ronald Reagan, it isn't that we are ignorant of facts, but that what we know is not factual at all.

In short we sometimes think we are aiming at the target and miss it widely; We respond by thinking to ourselves, “Well, my trajectory must have been off a little and we re-aim-only to find out that we are aiming at the wrong target entirely. That is because our basic assumptions were wrong in the first place, or we are trapped in our habits and our mindsets, or prejudices and views. As a matter of fact, sometimes we are so consumed by them that we are blinded to the truth.

This was driven home to me so well the other day when I arrived in a waiting room.

I walked in the doorway behind another patient. He strode to the window and asked for an appointment, told the attendant that he would pay cash money for it. He turned to me and we exchanged pleasantries for a second, I sat down next to him.

There were a couple other people already in the room, waiting as well.

The attendant asked the man who had come in with me to the back and opened the door, whereupon a woman who was waiting spoke up at once: Loudly, she proclaimed: “Well! The one who comes in with the white person got to go right in. He paid cash and got pushed ahead of the black person.”

Of course the 'white person' she was alluding to was me.

Only, I had nothing to do with the other man's appointment whatsoever.

Didn't seem to matter to this woman. She stood up and marched to the counter to confront the attendant.

“I've been waiting, and this other person got to go in ahead of me just because he paid cash and I am here free of charge. Is that it?”

The attendant, flustered, called for her senior behind her.

The senior nurse came out. I heard her address the complainant softly, but plainly: “Your procedure requires us to look at the computer for some information before we can take you back.”

Whereupon, the old black lady snuffed, turned to stare a hole through me and spat loudly, “Any excuse to keep the black person waiting!”

Then, she stomped to her seat, retaking it.

Her escort, an elderly man, came from the inside offices and sat down next to her as she ranted with vile cursings and smart, selfdepreciating phrases such as, “We'll see about that,” and “They will find out the true colors,” and the like.

I heard the old man lean into her at one point and whisper, “What do you mean by that?”

She shot back, “You'll see in the end.”

Obviously, he was bothered by her behavior as well.

At last my business was wrapped up and I left the place.

However, I couldn't help reflecting back on the incident.

Especially on the fact that the man who was allowed back before the woman?

He was a black man.

Yet, she chose to vent her vile remark at me-who neither knew of him, nor cared.

Secondly, that the senior attendant who explained calmly why she had to wait to retrieve the computer results of her records?

She was also black.

So, where was the offense? Well, in that woman's mind there was an offense: She had to wait.

But, was it racism that was the offense?

And if so, whose racism was it?

Black on black racism?

No. It was racism only in the mindset of the one imagining it.

And that's where we are these days.

You know, attitude is not politically controlled, nor socially constructed.

It is an individual choice.

And so often that is why we miss the mark of happiness in our lives.

Robert L. Hall is a resident of Marion and has a Bachelor’s Degree in music from the University of Memphis and a Master’s Degree from Florida State University. He is the pianist for Avondale Baptist Church and a writer of fiction on Amazon eBooks.

By Robert L. Hall