Waiting

What the hell was I thinking?  I must have forgotten where I came from?

Here’s what was on my to-do list for the day:

1. Go to the Social Security office and get information about applying.

2. Do a bunch of other stuff.

My to-do list should have read:

1. Go to the Social Security office and get information about applying.

2. Take a number and get in line.

3.  Read War and Peace.

4. Move up two spots in line.

I arrived at the Social Security office and there was the loooooooong line. It was so long, you’d swear Jesus himself must be at the other end passing out free $100 bills. Autographed.

Cripple Comrade Curtis was in the Social Security  line.  He said he was holding number 37. He’d been in line three hours. They were up to number 25.

So I left, feeling a bit embarrassed about my naiveté. What the hell was I thinking? I guess it’s been a long time since I’ve waited in a public service office waiting room. I should have remembered that in the waiting rooms of public service offices it’s not uncommon to see a cobweb-covered skeleton sitting in a wheelchair. Or you might see a skeleton wearing sunglasses sitting in a chair and at its feet is the skeleton of a guide dog.

Cripples spend a good part of our lives waiting in waiting rooms. A cripple’s life is like a Bataan Death Wait. It’s a test of endurance. Cripples wait on waiting lists, too. But we only wait on waiting lists for good, valuable stuff, like affordable, accessible housing. There’s no waiting list for stuff like a poke in the eye. You can step right up for that. Waiting on a waiting list is like waiting in a waiting room where you won’t get served until everyone who entered the waiting room before you dies. And you pray you don’t die first.

Here’s another thing I could have added to my to-do list on the day I went to the Social Security office:

1. Go to the Social Security office and get information about applying.

2. Take a number and get in line.

3.  Read War and Peace.

4. Move up two spots in line.

5. Become an expert on the life and times of the late U.S. Congressman Ralph Metcalfe.

 My local Social Security office is located in the federal office building named after the late U.S. Congressman Ralph Metcalfe. And on the wall outside the Social Security office is a photo essay chronicle of his life. There he is as a young man, dressed in his track and field outfit, standing next to Jesse Owens. Metcalfe won four medals sprinting in the 1932 and 1936 Olympics. There he is later, his hair dusted with white, standing next to famous 1960s politicians.

And so I bet everyone who waits in line at this Social Security office becomes an expert on the life and times of the late U.S. Congressman Ralph Metcalfe. They wander over and read. It’s a brief but merciful respite.

How could I have forgotten the crushing boredom of waiting in line? To pass time you read anything in sight. You read all the signs in the waiting room. You memorize them. It must be like being in solitary confinement. If someone drops an American Girl catalog through the slot, you read it voraciously.