Put a large screen TV on one wall with the news on and muted
so the breaking news is seen only if reading the banner and not heard.
News content can be disturbing to some, so consider putting the channel on a
network of home repairs, reality TV, garden makeovers,
HGTV or TLC, Lifetime, Feel good TV.
Provide teabags, coffee pods, hot cocoa, and a Keurig,
Portion control beverages are cost effective.
Ensure it weak, diluted, and provide packets of sugar, sugar in the raw,
and the two kinds of artificial sweetener,
Always color-coded— the yellow and the blue.
Single serve creamers or powdered creamer.
Nothing too gourmet or fancy. Just essential caffeine.
Paint the room in neutral hues or unsaturated cool tones.
Earth tones with a touch of orange at most,
dove gray trim on palest the wateriest blues and greens.
Berber carpets that make exhilarating “zip zips” when
feet are rubbed across it,
Padded beneath enough to meagerly swallow sound.
Consider touches of cheerful themed decor, seascapes, if coastal.
Tasteful minimalist decor. Very mindful, soft lines and hues.
Potted plants, real or plastic.
The mandatory ficus in a corner.
A Monstera, if budget/space permits.
A few Thomas Kincaid prints,
watercolor landscapes similar to hotel chain art.
Ensure the art is as forgettable as anesthesia.
Have arms on the chairs. Magazines. General Interest and Womens.
Health magazines and standard-sponsored
light entertainment- light bright reading.
a Bible and a few Chicken Soup books on faux wood end tables.
Consider music playing adult contemporary pop hits or instrumental formats.
Above all, make it peaceful, and familiar.
Seating should be grouped and comfortable, but not too comfortable.
Make it soothing, make it bland, make it tolerable.
It must be vanilla, not Bourbon or Madagascar vanilla,
the syrupy alcohol blankness of no brand artificial flavoring.
Vanilla with its single origin in a lab,
a non-flavor for a non-place.
Forgettable as cream of amnesia.

Write poetry for waiting rooms.

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by Robin Wyatt Dunn, with Perchance                             

Pixie Bruner is a writer, editor, and cancer survivor. She lives in Atlanta, GA, with her doppelgänger and alien cats.