At Last, Someone Pays Attention

We've all experienced it: the waiting room with the little chairs pushed up against each other, leaving even less room between humans than the stingy airlines deem sufficient.

You see one empty seat. On it is a purse, a shopping bag, and a jacket. The women on either side of it have their faces buried in magazines. You focus your laser eyes on them. Which of them is keeping your aching feet from relief? Aha! There it is--one of them is working hard to keep her eyes averted, pretending not to see you. Yes! She's the one.

I once signed up for a college class on Cultural Anthropology because the classes I really needed were full. It turned out to be one of the more serendipitous events of my academic career. I learned that people from different cultures have different needs for personal space, with Americans considering 3-1/2 empty feet to be their God-given right. Britishers need up to 4-1/2 feet, and Mediterranean people require only 18-24 inches, according to my professor, who grew up in an Italian neighborhood in Chicago with "garlic on his glasses".

The Prof showed us a movie in which people arranged themselves on benches as precisely as if they measured the space between them. I was convinced the people in my class and I were the only ones who ever saw that movie. Certainly not the folks who plan human containment areas.

But when I walked into the medical imaging office of my local clinic last week, I felt a shock of recognition (see picture above--doncha love it?) Somebody was paying attention! Just look at all that people-friendly space between the seats!

What a relief not to have to pretend I don't see you standing there, needing the space occupied by my stuff!

There Be Dinosaurs Here

Being in my gated retirement community is like living at the edge of an ocean. No waves, of course, (we have that hot, dry desert thing going on) but there is a definite line of delineation between species of air and water.

Species 1: working folks, mostly Hispanic, trying to make ends meet and raise their children. Species 2: wealthy outsiders, mostly white, with a strong sense of entitlement. I live on their side of the line, by freak circumstances involving the current recession..

For the most part, each species stays within their preferred environment. Well, except for daylight hours, when an army of service industry workers invade the compound to clean, polish, trim, and prune the wealthy folks' homes and gardens. I admire the invading army. They work hard and they have jobs--a commodity I still lack.

At a committee meeting today, someone noticed I was wearing scrubs and asked if I'm a nurse. I told them no, not a nurse. I'm training to be a Front Office Medical Assistant (the person who checks you in, verifies your insurance, makes your next appointment, and bills your insurance company.) I told the inquirer that I'm studying Spanish on my own and will take a class at the local community college next semester because I think I need to speak Spanish to get a job in the Coachella Valley. And I would really like to have a part time job.

A woman wearing a golf hat and a pinched expression said, "That's just the way it is now; no jobs for real Americans. You have to speak Spanish."

An actual dinosaur rising up in front of me would have stunned me less. Dinosaurs once ruled the world but evolution changed that. Wealthy old white people may still control much of the country's wealth, but I think they're losing out to the inevitable, just as their metaphorical counterparts did. I didn't tell her I'm half Hispanic. I didn't ask where her grandparents came from. I probably said something lame like, "Oh."

I did, however, think I might be running toward the wrong side of the line at the end of the day.