Medicaid Day At the Allergist's Office

My baby daughter S is allergic to everything that grows in our town. If it is has leaves or spores or roots or buds, it sets her to wheezing and itching and coughing and dripping. Every year, she seems to get worse, and we recently sought the help of an allergist, who of course recommended allergy shots, so we added weekly injections to our extracurricular activities. It is almost as big of a time commitment as soccer practice, if you think about it. My older daughter has braces, so between them, our weekly checkups with the orthodontist or the allergist are like two extra activities. Each office carries about the same germ risk as spending time in gymnastics or softball, only the offices are air conditioned and, for the most part, the waiting rooms are quiet. If I had to make a choice between sitting in the sun watching my bored child avoid kicking a soccer ball or sitting in a waiting room, texting and reading a book, well, I am pretty sure you know which one I would pick.

Last week, S and I went for her injections on Thursday morning before school, like we normally do. We saw the usual people who arrive before us, the middle schooler with the gorgeous curly hair, the plump businessman with the ankle length pants, the older painfully thin real estate agent. S got her injections, one in each arm, and we settled into our chairs for the mandatory half hour wait that follows the shots. You never know when a reaction will occur, and I would prefer not to have to deal with anaphylactic shock on the drive to school.

While we sat, S quietly coloring, me reading and trying not to fall asleep, two women came in the office waiting room. They each carried a baby car seat with them, and one of them had two other children following her like ducklings. The oldest one was a boy, about three or four, and the other one was a little girl who could not have yet turned two. Both of the car seat babies looked too young to sit independently. I couldn’t tell why the whole gang was here, unless it was for moral support, or possibly because “The People’s Court” doesn’t start that early.


The one mom, who it turned out was not the mother of the two older kids, pulled out the waiting room toys, spread them all over the floor in front of where S and I sat in the injection waiting room, and parked the kids. All that bending over provided S and me with an excellent view of both her tramp stamp and her ample ass. Then she joined the other mom in the main waiting room. They were not close enough to supervise the children without yelling at them, which wasn’t a problem because the two kids ran back and forth from the moms to the toys. S looked at the kids and then at me, as if I had the power to make them move, or at the very least, make whichever mother claimed them as her own to be responsible for them.

I was now more interested in what was going on in the waiting room than in my book. The actual mother walked over to the kids to tell them to be quiet. She was not small, but her shirt was, and her large stomach hung out the bottom. After fussing, she settled herself in a waiting room chair, removed her baby from the car seat and laid her out on top of her lap, at which point the baby began to cry. At first, I thought she was going to start nursing, which, while something I did not care to see, was a reasonable thing to do, even in a waiting room at the allergist’s office.

Sadly, I was mistaken. She undressed her baby and proceeded to change its diaper across her lap, right in the waiting room. And no, it wasn’t just a wet nappy. She used that soiled diaper to wipe her child’s tush, then used an actual wipe to finish the job. A small corner of the wipe floated gently to the ground in front of her chair. I couldn’t look away. Of all the places to change a dirty diaper, my lap never occurred to me. It struck me as lazy efficiency at its finest.

When she finished, she got up to find a trash can. I know you are hoping she left to find the rest room and wash her hands, but no, she wasn’t gone long enough for that. I am pretty sure she tossed that crappy diaper in the nearest trash can, a surprise for the lucky office staff. She plopped back in her chair, stuffed her arm into her diaper bag, and with the hand that just wiped her baby’s bottom, she grabbed a handful of Nutter Butter Bites and shoved them in her mouth. Did I mention it was 8:15 in the morning? I found that a little early to make a meal of poo-laced cookies, but then again, I haven’t walked a mile in her shoes.

I watched her chew open mouthed and stuff more cookies in her pie hole when finally her son’s name was called for his doctor visit. She picked up the baby and the diaper bag and hollered for her son to follow her, instructing the not yet two year old girl to stay in the waiting room until they returned. That other mom could have been there to watch her, but she looked pretty busy flipping pages of a four month old People magazine to be bothered with supervising the child.

Unfortunately, S’s thirty minute wait was up. She got her arms checked by the nurse, who gave her all clear to leave. We stared at the two year old and the other mother on our way out. In the parking lot, I pulled out my hand sanitizer and S and I liberally doused our hands and arms with it. I spotted what had to be their SUV right next to my own, the one with the custom paint job, the back seat lined with boosters and car seats, the front seat lined with food wrappers and other garbage.

“Well, that was interesting,” I said to S.

“Where did she put that diaper?” S asked me.

“I have no idea. We might not ever know.”

“Can I have some more Purell?” S asked.

“As much as you want, baby. As much as you want.”