A Healthy Boy

Last Friday while Ginny visited her doctor, I sat alone in the waiting area midway along a long hall, a long wide hall which stretches for at least 40 yards.

The outside door opened and a grandfather entered dragging a protesting little boy. The kid looked to be between six and nine years old and he did not want to go to a doctor’s appointment.

“I don’t want to go in there! I don’t want to go in there,” he screamed.

The unrelenting grandfather tugged the kid by the arm to the registration desk to sign in. The kid struggled. He refused to move his feet and his grandfather pulled him across the slick floor, his heels sliding and leaving scuff marks.

“I don’t want to go in there! I don’t want to go in there,” the kid screamed.

As they passed me, the kid screamed, “Don’t make me go in there. I don’t need to go in there! I’m a Healthy Boy”!

The unmerciful grandfather ignored the healthy boy’s protests and carried him through some double doors to a pediatric area behind me. I could still hear the boy protesting at top volume.

Soon a loud commotion broke out.

The double doors burst open.

Here ran the boy down the hall racing for the outside door with a nurse in hot pursuit and the grandfather panting in a distant third.

The kid almost made the 40 yards to the door before the nurse collared him. She held the fugitive till the grandfather arrived and the two of them dragged the boy stiff legged back down the corridor.

At the top of his lungs the boy screamed, “I don’t want to die! I don’t want to die! I don’t want to die”!

They passed through the double doors out of my sight.

Silence reigned.

Up till then I’d been the only person in the waiting area, but now various people wandered in to take a seat. One family arrived with two little girls, six or seven by the look of them; they settled in to look at magazines while waiting their turn in pediatrics.

The double doors opened and out came the disheveled nurse, and the harried grandfather.

The healthy boy marched smugly in a straight line a few paces behind them.

As he passed the two little girls, the healthy boy turned his head sharply and said in a conspiratorial aside to them, “It doesn’t hurt a bit”.