You know that feeling when you realize that you no longer belong at the pediatric doctor?

The doctor smiles too big, an embellished stethoscope wound around her neck. “So what brings you in today?”

“My throat,” I say. Kitschy toys hang from the ceiling — pearlescent orbs, a stuffed giraffe, an alphabet poster.

“Of course! So many things are going around these days!” She speaks mostly in exclamations. “Would you mind hopping on the table!”

Hop on I do.

“Anything else bothering you? How long has this been going on for!” There is a sticker at the end of the tool she shines inside my throat.

The kiddie accoutrements make me feel big and awkward. “No, only that.”

She tsks. “Of course, of course.”

Walking down the hall, I pass a crying baby, a small pigtailed toddler, a boy of four or five.

It hits me slowly, like that dangling toy from the ceiling. Most doctor’s offices are not garishly painted. The doctors don’t speak in saccharine tones and hand out patterned band aids.

You know that feeling when you realize that you no longer belong at the pediatric doctor?