warrior Thursday

Today is Thursday. I just pulled up to the location of my ethnography site. The parking lot seems to be full of vehicles. I walk inside to find a crowd of people. It smells of bleach and popcorn. What a combination! I notice two of the volunteers who help out at this place of business. They are well-kept and cleanly dressed ladies. In fact, I have began to notice I see a few of the same people, employees and volunteers, that I saw the last two times I have been here. The people who work here all seem to be healthy. Just as I am writing what I think down I take note that one of the doors open in the main waiting area is cracked open. It appears to be a lounge room or a kitchen for the staff. I see two security men dressed in the security outfits sitting down in chairs at a square table eating. Even the guards are eating healthy! I see one eating subway and the other one packed his lunch. He is biting into an apple. The door is right beyond the popcorn machine. The popcorn machine is low of popcorn. More often than not I see children and older individuals eating this snack. I have not seen a pattern of only certain age groups eating popcorn, not here at this facility.

I take a seat at the main waiting room on the first floor. Two screens flash with the number thirty-eight and just as I notice the number flashing a man comes on the intercom and says the number aloud. I look to see who is speaking the numbers and I locate a man with a familiar face. I have seen him in the same location before carrying out the same duty of speaking the numbers on the intercom. He looks well rested and notices me glaring at him. He smiles and gives a nod with his head. I waive. I glance at the tv screens and see that one tv is showing Fox news and the other tv has the History channel on. The History channel is playing a commercial. The commercial that is running is for the swiffer product. The Fox news channel has the local weather being displayed for the week.

I take a gander around me and even though I notice there are a lot of people in the waiting room it is strangely not noisy at all. Since I have been observing and writing my notes they have called the numbers 39-43. Today there are a lot of older woman in the waiting room. I count 8 older woman, 5 kids, and 4 men all waiting in the waiting room. Two of the kids, girls, are sitting with chairs facing each other playing some game with a piece of string. I think they might be playing cats cradle. I played this as a young kid and I remember it was pretty fun and entertaining. None of the kids seem to be looking at the tv screens at all. There are three younger boys all of whom are sitting with, I assume, the adults they came with. One of the younger kids, Anglo, males is dressed in a uniform. His white collard shirt says Jesus Chapel. I look to see whom he is with and he is with an older woman who is wearing a long skirt and a button up green shirt. She looks like a businesswoman. The man calls the number 44 as it flashes on the two monitors. The woman, wearing the skirt, and her son in the uniform gets up out the seat and walks towards the man who greets them opening the door and says, “This way please”.

At this time I hear an obnoxious voice coming from near the entrance of the building. I look over and see an elderly man being pushed in a wheel chair by an African American lady wearing blue scrubs. Her hair is long and pulled back in a ponytail. The older man is wearing sweat pants and a sweatshirt. He seems to be talking about horse racing and how his son is paying a man to train his sons’ horse. He seems to be very excited about the situation because he is talking very loud. He then tells the lady “honey I want popcorn”. She tells him okay we will get you popcorn, but keep telling me about this horse. He sounds like he might be from the east coast because he has an accent that does not seem to be from around here. They walk up to get some popcorn and there are no volunteers around. He says honey just go ahead grab be a cup right there and fill it up. He sounds somewhat impatient, but I doubt that he is. He must realize he is unable to go to far. I sometimes think that people in wheel chairs might seem crabby, but maybe it is just because they are old. My grandfather is not in a wheel chair and he is crabby all the time!

Anyways. They are now calling number 47. I look around the room and no one is getting up to meet the nurse or doctor to go in the back room. The two young girls have now left the room. The other kid is Hispanic and is with his mother. His mother is a shorter lady wearing an army shirt and shorts. She has her hair pulled in a ponytail and has her hand on her sons’ shoulder kind of rubbing his shoulder. He leans his head on her side and they look at each other and smile.

I head the old man still talking to the lady in scrubs but I am unable to tell what he is saying. They are calling number 48. It is starting to get louder in the room. They numbers are being called more quickly and people are disappearing off somewhere.

The two guards exit the room behind the popcorn machine. One walks outside and the other makes his way to the elevators.

I am unable to stay much longer so I gather my things and make my way to the parking lot.