Tim hated waiting. There were very few things that Tim liked less than waiting.
It was a Sunday afternoon. Tim sat at the waiting room in an auto shop. His mother was having her car fixed.
Tim had already checked the vending machines (自动贩卖机). He often put his fingers into the coin returns of vending machines. Some people forgot to collect their change, so he often found some coins. That would be nice. But this time he found nothing.
After that, he played with the drinking fountain and examined the coffee pot, which was empty. Sugar packets were fun to play with for about five seconds, but then his mom told him to stop. So he put down the blue and white packets and went back to sit.
He then tried to see if he could rock the chair back and forth. It was hard to do because the chair had such strong legs. It was a nice chair, but that didn't mean it might not have loose screws (螺丝).
He checked each screw but all of them were tight.
Sighing, Tim wondered what else he could do to waste time.
The TV was on, but it was on a news channel, speaking of boring things that adults liked to know about. Mom wouldn't let him climb the counter to get up to the TV to change the channels, either.
Then Tim saw several magazines. He decided to pick up one. It had a lot about popular stars but he didn't care about that stuff. He finally found one on science and animals. It was really interesting. The pictures were colorful. In fact he was so into it that his mother had to shake him to let him know the car was done.
"See?" she said. "Waiting doesn't have to be boring. You just have to keep yourself busy doing something. I've also read some chapters."
Tim nodded and smiled. His head was still full of the pictures he'd seen.
a. He read a magazine on science. b. He looked for coins in a machine.
c. He checked the empty coffee pot. d. He tried to rock the chair with strong legs.
