oh humanity
I’m in urgent care rn and remembering this thing that happened a few years ago that cracks me up to this day
I was due to get either an X Ray or an ultrasound and made the mistake of not heeding the whole “don’t drink anything for 12 hours” rule. I had drank something probably 2 hours earlier, not a lot, but I was hoping I’d just get away with it.
I get on the table and the technician is getting down to it, gel on stomach, locating organs, etc. I watch her looking at the screen and see her begin to squint before turning to me, the accusation on the tip of her tongue. I, deep in my people pleasing bag, am cowering under the pressure of her gaze and just how freaking cold the ultrasound gel is. She asks,
“Did you drink something recently?”
I, breaking a sweat and getting the chills of embarrassment, respond with an excuse:
“Oh yeah, but it was only a little bit I just forgot haha sorry!”
she, annoyed (I also came late), tells me we can’t do the ultrasound until my bladder is empty and packs up all her equipment. I’m like, “oh okay, what can I do?” and she tells me to go out in the hallway and walk up and down the hall until I need to pee, and that it may take 30 minutes. I, embarrassed by the prospect of walking up and down a hall, in silence, in front of strangers, for possibly thirty minutes, but also not wanting to be chided by this lady again, go out into the hallway and begin my walk up and down.
at first it was weird because this hall was 1. long 2. midway down it opens up to a waiting room where there are like three families sitting around and 3. the doors are very spread apart from each other, so when you’re walking down in one direction it only makes sense that you’d be going to this one door, only to turn around and walk back up.
after the first 7 laps it got easier, though it was still so uncomfortable to have someone ahead of you opening a door for you, expecting you to also walk inside, just for you to turn around completely and walk away. I imagine it was jarring to feel like you’re being followed by some very tall girl and she suddenly does a 180 the moment you get in the door for your doctors appointment.
and then something really funny happened. someone got up and started doing laps behind me. which I was confused by, because… why? but they were doing it. they had been one of the people sitting in the waiting room and had undoubtedly seen me walking up and down this hall for at least 8 minutes and decided to get up and do it too.
and after them, another person got up to do it. and soon, there were like five people doing laps up and down this hallway with me, none of us speaking to each other, just going. it was so surreal.
it was like one of those psychology experiments that you read about in an intro psych class. you see someone doing something out of the norm for long enough that you think it’s normal and join them, and then people see the two of you and think they should join in, and they do. and it just goes and goes.
and this whole time, i’m live tweeting on twitter and checking my apple watch for how many calories i’m burning because my watch asked me about four minutes in if i’m doing an indoor walk. blasting a spotify mix in my airpods, and strutting up and down and up and down to no end. until finally, I needed to pee.
I go to the bathroom and when I emerge, there’s the rest of the people who were walking laps still walking. I go to my ultrasound and when I leave, there’s two people still walking. it was incredible. I understood that scene in forest gump where he walks across the united states and all these people join him and cheer him on despite him not speaking to anyone about it or elaborating on why he was doing what he was doing.
but yeah. humanity is really cute and funny sometimes.