Pull Yourself Together!

Rapid tapping on the side table, furious fingers moving in ordered succession across the hard wood, was enough to drive a person mad.  It was almost as agitating as the woman next to him who crinkled the newspaper and snapped it after every page turn.

Waiting is never easy, and today’s wait was so much worse than all the others. She never let him come in with her. She always left him to sit in this cramped little room, shoulder to shoulder with a stranger who, no doubt, would smell of pickles or medicated creams.

Stop tapping! he screamed inside his head while he dug his fingernails into the palm of his hand. Neither the internal rant nor the pain in his palm seemed to alleviate the irritation.

He focused his eyes on the hand. It’s rhythmic da-da-da-da, da-da-da-da over and over again worked to pull his eyebrows down into a menacing slant.  Newspaper lady looked on in disgust as if she wasn’t annoying, too.

The door swung open, the abused side table grew silent as every eye in the suffocating room turned to stare at the woman garbed all in white.

“Mr. Glockenspiel, your wife says you can come in,” she announced in a nasally whine.

For some reason, the fingers resting on the side table pressed down into the wood, maybe hoping to take some of its sturdy strength up into their owner, but that’s ridiculous, he thought while he scraped his nails across the worn surface before standing to follow the nurse.

I’m gonna be a daddy . . . again!