I sat in the waiting room  and waited for Dave to be finished with his colonoscopy.    I had to wait quite a long time, so I brought my Kindle and read.  I looked up from the book from time to time, a little annoyed at the television.  There are televisions now in waiting rooms.  Not all of them, but some.   Dr. Phil or a soap opera or a game show.  A year ago when I waited for my MRI, I was the only one in the waiting room, so I asked if I could turn the TV off.  The woman behind the counter was surprised I asked, but also grateful for the reprieve from the relentless chatter.  She warned me that we may have to turn it back on if someone came in.

So that day I looked around to see if anyone was watching.  There were ten people in the waiting room.  I counted.  Two women and one man watched the TV.  The man watching actually talked to it, answering the riddles being proposed by the game show host.  The women watched tensely, obviously too wound up to relax.  But the rest of the people, all seven of them, both men and women, were reading.  Three were reading books they had brought along, and the rest were reading magazines. 

I suppose it could be that people who get colonoscopies tend to be more educated and literary, or maybe that people who get colonoscopies are older people and there are more readers among this population.  But can we please stop saying that no one reads anymore?