The Waiting Game

I had an X-ray and follow up visit with my doctor today.  He told me that everything looks good and that the pain and stiffness in my wrist will eventually go away.  I explained that raising a wine glass up to my lips and down again always makes me feel better and he agreed that it is excellent therapy.

Val and I were at the hospital for several hours, much of it spent in waiting rooms.  We had to wait for the X-ray to be taken, wait for the results to be printed, wait for my doctor, wait for invoices, etc.  We must have been in and out of waiting rooms half a dozen times.

Which means we had to follow the official French Waiting Room Protocol.  Failure to do so can result in fines or – even worse - suspension of your pain au chocolat privileges.

What is the Protocol, you ask?

When someone enters a waiting room, they must say hello to the people already there.  There’s no slinking in and just taking a seat – no, no, that would not be polite.

You can simply say “Bonjour” as you enter, but that’s only for those who were not well raised.  Much better is to tailor your greeting to who is already in the room.

If there is just one man in the waiting room, you should say “Bonjour, monsieur” as you enter.  For multiple men it’s “Bonjour messieurs.” 

A single woman gets “Bonjour madame” while for several women it’s “Bonjour mesdames.”

For a room with both genders, you use the complicated dual-gender greeting “Bonjour messieurdames.”

This means that every time you enter a waiting room you need to do a quick scan before you know what to say.  This can be tricky if there’s a gentleman with long hair or a man purse. 

And I have no idea what to say if someone is transgendered, but I’m sure the good people of North Carolina have this figured out.

And then there is the responding.

Not only do you say hello when you enter a waiting room but everyone already there says hello to you in return.  One of the rooms today was pretty full so every time someone walked in and said, “Bonjour messieurdames”, they got a room full of people saying “Bonjour” in return.

It reminded me of second grade when Mrs. Wilson would say “Good morning class” and we would all say “Good morning Mrs. Wilson” in unison.

If you spend a lot of time in waiting rooms, as we did, you say an awful lot of hellos.  Val got so good at it that the lady sitting next to her thought she was French and asked her opinion of one of the doctors. 

Or maybe she thought I was French because I was so engrossed in a French fashion magazine.

One has to stay up on the latest styles, after all.

KVS