Stumbling along the sidewalk

I’m sitting in a waiting room of an office building. I spend a good chunk of my life in waiting rooms, and in office buildings. So far, two people have asked if they could help me, and I’ve told them both that I have an appointment at 9:30. It’s 9:00 now. I hear men outside the door loading trucks. Not sure what they’re loading. There’s sounds of banging of metal. I hear a woman’s voice, and a man’s voice, inside the office. I hear men talking and laughing outside. I hear a television, perhaps an informational or instructional video.

There’s a sign on the front glass door, and another copy of the sign on the sign-in table, warning those with colds to stay away, so that staff are not exposed. The corona virus is in the news all the time, day and night with updates on new cases and quarantines. People are terrified of getting sick. I’m not sick, so I stay seated and wait for my appointment. I do use the hand sanitizer. You never know.

Days seem to fly by, but I agonize with moments where I have to wait—wait on doctors, wait on traffic lights, wait to pick up my wife from work, wait on dinner to cook, wait on bible study to start, wait on bedtime to give our pets their snacks. We have eight pets: a yellow lab, my wife’s guide dog; a brown chihuahua; a small, but chubby, orange cat; a fuzzy, but thin, orange cat; a black and white tuxedo cat; two grey cockatiels, and a green parakeet.

Our pets take up a lot of our time, attention, and energy. They keep us in a routine, and they keep us from moving around too much, as they like to lay in our laps. When one or both of our laps are occupied, we say, I need to do such and such, but so and so is in my lap. This excuse sometimes keeps us from getting up to get a snack, or it just might keep us from doing a chore, or doing a favor. The pets are the owners, we’re just staff, as they say.