Monty by Jim Meddick for July 17, 2016

I ALWAYS take my own reading material, be it an online book or a real newspaper (yes,they still sell those).

This is so close to reality that I think it can’t be called a “comic” strip. The dullest magazines imaginable, or unimaginable, are all one finds in the dentist’s waiting room.

A friend used to give me People magazine after she’d read it…She’d gotten it from her daughter, after she’d read it….The daughter, a home care nurse, had gotten it from a patient, who subscribed… but of course, only after she’d read it.None of us went through magazines very quickly.By the time I got those battered issues, they were several months to a year old…some had articles or pictures cut out. After I read them, I took little piles of them to my doctor’s office…where they were usually the newest reading material in the waiting room.

I have to say, though…I told my doctor he needed to encourage a few more elective surgeries so he could afford magazines for us.

He said he had previously subscribed to several… including People… but they got stolen the first day they arrived.People don’t steal the Gastroenterology Review. (I almost said “Gastroenterology Digest” but that would be an abdominal… I mean abominable… pun.)

Now I don’t have to read the those, anyway, or the 2009 Junior Scholastics usually lying around at my current medical practice..I read a magazine and news app called Flipboard on my phone.

I play UnBlockMe on my phone. Even if the article is interesting, in the magazine, you may not get a chance to finish it.

This is the second dentist related strip I’ve seen today. The other one is Foxtrot.

Um, at my office some patients come early because we have so many interesting and current magazines that hey want more time to read them. And we also offer internet access.

This is why I take my Kindle to every appointment.

The last time I went to my Optrometrist, they had a copy of Time Magazine in their magazine rack. It was from June … 1964. Barry Goldwater was on the cover.

Apparently, someone cleared out a hoard of old magazines and donated them to the doctor. Since no else seemed to be interested in the old issue, I asked the receptionist if I could have it. “Sure”, she said. It was obvious that it was ancient history to her, but it was part of my history. I was 11 years old in 1964 and I remember that election very well.

P.S. – Lyndon Johnson defeated Goldwater in a landslide.

My regular dentist has always had an interesting Waiting Room. Some years ago, he had two aquariums. In his new office, there are magazines, yes, but also some picture anthologies. I have looked at old baseball, WWII and 30s and 40s Hollywood ones.

Did you hear about the doctor whose license to practice was revoked… because magazines less than a year old were found in his waiting room?

I miss Highlights magazine, and Goofus and Galliant . . .