Recently I spent some time in the waiting room in a psychiatric clinic which is somewhat of an event in itself. First of all I should say that I don't feel that mental diseases are particularly funny in themselves and mental diseases are diseases in the same way as physical diseases and most can be helped through medication and does not need to be chronic in any way.
That said, the waiting room in a psychiatric clinic is pretty interesting when looking at the clientel and the behaviour in there, I should also add that this obviously was an outpatient clinic so whatever problems these people were suffering were of a nature where they can function outside in the society at large. A number of interesting characters were present though:
First we had the almost normal people who are sitting and waiting and only look a bit nervous, suddenly looking in one direction due to a sound or something that drew their attention.
Then we had the lady that every five minutes approached the staff and asked if her name had been called, profusely apologizing when they told her that "no, not yet" only to ask again five minutes later.
Then there was also the lady who in a very aggressive and loud voice asked the staff when it was her turn and that she didn't want to wait even though a large number of people were before her.
There was also the guy with a baby cart, without any baby in it, just a couple of books, but hey, who am I to judge, it might be convenient.
Then there's the numerous people who just look sad and stare down at the floor, avoiding carefully to look at any of the other people present. Sometimes rocking gently back and forth.
Also we had the guy who kept talking loudly to himself and regularly spitting in a cup.
As a common theme for most people in the clinic, when their name is called the most common behaviour is a loud screaming of "HAI!" (in this context, meaning, "here") and running quickly to the doctor's office in obvious fear that 2 seconds stalling would mean they lose their turn.
Then we had me of course, and I probably made an equally entertaining and interesting participant, sitting playing Puyopuyo on my new mobile phone and struggling to beat level 7 and almost getting annoyed when my name got called and I had to cancel my game...
All in all, I can think of more stimulating places to spend an hour in the afternoon in, but you can hardly say it's boring at least!
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