Waiting. The first sound the word brings to mind is “Waiting for a Girl Like You,” the 1981 classic by Foreigner:

And the second is Tom Petty’s “The Waiting,” also a classic from the very same year:

How did we get two immortal waiting songs in one year?! Thank you, 1981.

But wait! Oh yeah, there were three waiting songs in 1981! Who could forget this one:

As much as I love these songs about waiting, I hate waiting, of course. Who doesn’t? Who looks forward to stewing in a crowded waiting room, especially at a doctor’s office, where contagion squats in every nook and cranny? So I was relieved to learn this morning that my doctor’s office was asking me to sit in my car until it was my turn for my appointment. I was overdue for my shingles booster shot, but I could relax in the air-conditioned solitude of my ride rather than in a stuffy room.

I parked in a sunny spot near the office entrance, ready for a short wait. I called the office to tell them I’d arrived, and whoops, scheduling mixup: Could I wait another thirty minutes or more? They promised to call me when it was time to come up and pass the temperature screen, and then my shot would take less than ten minutes.

Grumbling, I moved my car into a shady spot on the ground level in the adjacent garage. I usually try to avoid the gloomy garage because the darkness in there depresses me. But I couldn’t sit in the sun all that time. I cranked up the AC and turned on Fresh Air. Oh goody, Terry Gross is talking to Matthew Rhys, so I’ll have some musical Welsh-accented conversation to distract me. I know, I know, it’s terrible to idle my car for so long, but have you been in Washington in the summer? There’s no way I was going to swelter in silence for thirty minutes or more. And no, I did not want to go for a nice walk, Mom.

As I’m immersing myself in the interview, I notice something gray and white half-dangling from the concrete crossbeam above my car. It’s a dead bird. As I look more closely, I can see a pattern of swallow nests built inside every interior corner of the garage’s horizontal exterior. There must have been hundreds of birds in here. But this one was an ex.

I tried not to stare at his pathetic desiccated fluffy head, drooping below his sleek but stiff-looking body. His legs seemed pinned in the nest, as if he’d gotten tangled and couldn’t escape. Poor little swallow.

Oh well, back to Terry Gross. . . . Haha, Matthew Rhys is talking about how hard it is for him to get the word “murderer” right in an American accent. He sounds so American in his roles. Gosh I love Fresh Air. I could just sit and listen to it all day . . .

Wait, something just moved in the bushes out there! Was it a golden retriever? It was about that size and color. I focus on the area that caught my eye. When my eyes adjust to the shadows, I can see it. Looking right at me was an eight-point buck, sprawled in his shady napping spot under the suburban brush. From my car, I could make out the fuzzy velvet on his ornate antlers. I got out my phone to take a photo and he leapt up and made a zigzag across the distant field.

That’s when the crows arrived, at least six of them. (How many crows does it take to make a murder? How would Matthew Rhys sound saying “murderer of crows”?) They were hounded by a pair of blue jays, who were squawking at the crows to stop whatever they were doing, or about to do. The crows ignored the jays, the way most of us do.

Two lead crows were taking turns doing a kind of digging dance with their feet, while the others formed a perimeter. They would trade off on the same spot, grinding their toes into the grass and the soil underneath. I couldn’t tell the purpose of this behavior, but clearly it was important to them, and their crow brothers.

Then the phone rang. Had it been thirty minutes already? It was time to leave this wild waiting room and head upstairs for my shot. Goodbye, crows. Goodbye, dead swallow. Goodbye, Terry. Goodbye, Matthew. Goodbye, buck. Thanks for being such great companions while I waited.