Yesterday, I drove my mother to a couple of doctor appointments at the hospital that has become her home-away-from-home. She's 89 and is there so often, we've discussed switching her voter registration to that address. Her caregiver drives her to the kind of appointments where she just goes in and someone draws blood or clips her toenails. I take her when there are doctors to talk with and possible decisions to be made.
When she's hospitalized, as she intermittently is, I spend a lot of time at this place…so much so that one afternoon, when I got a hamburger there in just about the most awful cafeteria you could imagine, the cashier gave me the employee discount. I told her, "I don't work here," and she said, "Oh. I guess I'm just so used to seeing you…"
Spending time there means waiting. And waiting. And waiting. And waiting some more. And then there's the waiting. Like anyone who's busy, I resent waiting and try to find ways to put that time to use. For a long time, the best I could do was to take along a notebook (the kind with paper) so I could jot down ideas for scripts.
I couldn't even make phone calls and handle business-type matters. I get pretty decent cell coverage everywhere but not in this particular hospital. My iPhone, as with my BlackBerry before it, cannot get a signal inside.
One of the reasons I bought an iPad was so I can do something resembling work in situations where I have to sit and wait. At the very least, I can play Sudoku. When I'm sitting with my mother waiting, I sometimes call up a Video Poker game on the iPad and let her play. Her eyes couldn't see the one on my iPhone but the iPad screen is large enough for her. It would be so helpful if I could get on the web while at that hospital so I could surf, blog and answer e-mail…but since I can't get a 3G phone connection, I sure can't get on the Internet.
But wait…
So yesterday I'm waiting 45 minutes for a prescription for her. I have never understood why it takes 45 minutes for a pharmacist to take a tube off a shelf and slap a label on it but I guess it does. Anyway, I'm playing Sudoku and figuring out where my sixes go, which is always the toughest part. Suddenly, a little window pops up that says in effect, "Click here to connect with public wi-fi." I clicked and I suddenly had a pretty strong public wi-fi connection. My e-mail downloaded as fast as it does at home. My webpage loaded instantly. All was right with the world.
When they called me to the window to pick up my mother's ointment, the pharmacy assistant saw my iPad and asked, "Did you notice? The public wi-fi just went online here. It's a new service for our patients."
Behind me in line, a woman shrieked (happily), "Public wi-fi?" She hauled out her smartphone, did some fast configuring and then began announcing proudly to all, "I'm on the web! I'm on the web!" And all over the pharmacy, people hauled out their cell phones to see if they too could get on the web. Most of them apparently could.
I don't know what a public wi-fi connection like that costs but I'll bet it's cost-effective in terms of good will. We were all darned happy there yesterday. We've all spent a lot of time at that place waiting. And waiting. And waiting. And waiting some more.