Rat in Waiting Room

This is a true story it actually happened. 

Rat in waiting room-Fall 2014

As i walked into the podiatry waiting room I thought nothing of it. I  opened the door muffled through my purple purse to find my wallet to pull out my twenty dollar copay and stood in line. However, a unique lady sitting in a wheelchair caught my attention. She wore a maroon coat that was too big for her and had yellow hat that held her black her back away from her face.  Her face was very calm yet very concentrated on her GIANT carpetbag that sat on her lap. Hanging out of the bag was all sorts of stuff, her pink ball of yarn and knitting tools, a magazine, her yellow gloves that matched her hat, her Mountain Dew... but what caught my attention more than anything was what her hand was on top of and gently stroking-was what i thought I saw was a pink nose and whiskers and thats when the lady at the front the desk said “Amanda, that will be twenty dollars”. I quickly handed her my twenty crumpled up twenty dollar bill and searched for my destination in the waiting room to where I would sit. I wanted to obviously sit close enough to see WHAT was in this woman's bag!? Was it a rat?hamster?ferret? but i knew it was real. I was dying inside. So i decided to sit in the chairs next to them. Sure enough it was whiskers and a nose! Who the hell brings a real animal to a doctors appointment! I thought. SO of course I texted my friend jessie. Who said I should ask to borrow a pen or something, to see what else was in this giant carpet bag of this ladies, which I thought was brilliant, but of course did not have the guts to do! Instead I just observed. The lady with her seemed annoyed, very annoyed. She just stood behind the wheelchair looking down at the lady’s head. The carpet bag was a old worn out brown-like color with teal birds on it with green leaves in the back. It was a pretty in an “old lady” like fashion way. Her knitting spilled out of one corner of the bag and the rat out of the corner... which upon listening was called “cotton” for as I sat there and waited for my appointment the small creature began to squeak and the lady gently petted it and would say “shhhh cotton, be quiet!” in a stern yet gentle whisper. I had to hold back my laughter and not try to stare. Which when you glanced around the waiting room, I think everyone else was trying too do the same as well. Sure enough “cotton” tried to climb out of the bag! A rat, a real live rat was in this woman's bag! I texted Jess to tell her the update. As I texted her, the lady got peppermints out of her bag and started eating them and making a loud ruckus with her wrappers drawing even more attention to her. And I just was laughing inside. I was sitting in the doctors waiting room and lady was stroking a rats head saying “shhhh cotton.... shhh” and thats when the door opened and a nurse said “Amanda Dominguez.” I quickly popped up out of my chair, threw my iPhone in my purse and walked passed the mysterious rat lady. As I walked passed, I glanced into the giant brown-like teal bird covered carpet bag and saw the white nose of the rat- and thought this is for real. Wow. I giggled the whole way until I reached my little doctors room. The door to my room closed and AMy the nurse goes. “I know can you f$#%ing believe that crazy!? I have to see her next!.” and I burst out laughing! There was a rat in the waiting room. There really is never a dull moment and you never know who or what you will run into!