The Land of Queue

I am a fan of queues.  They have an absolute purpose in life…..no cutting in line.  If I go to a store with multiple cashiers, I can guarantee that I will get in the slowest line.  It is stressful for me.  I look around and all of the other lines are just flying!  Nope, not mine.

“Price check on Aisle 4, please?” 

          “Oops. I rang that item up too many times.  

          I will have to fetch a manager to void this.”

                “Oh!  This bottle is leaking!  

                 Why don’t you just run back and grab another.”

Yep....that's my line….every time.

The idea of a queue is to 

enter a roped area and wait your turn until 

“the next available cashier can assist you.”  

It runs smoothly….until….you have a queue jumper.

I shop at a grocery store that has a queue.  I love it.  

No question as to when it is your turn. Stress free.

 

I was standing at the front of the line and there she goes, skipping right past the magic sign

LINE

STARTS

HERE

and into the short line.  This same woman bullied her way through the entire store, pushing her way in front of everyone else’s carts, moving carts out of the way, never saying excuse me……ugh!

Then….out of nowhere, came the Queue Angel.  She looked right at me and said, “You’re next on Aisle 4.”  I let her know someone else was in that line and I would wait for the next aisle.

“Oh no……she is taking her things off the belt right now.  

You are next on Aisle 4.”

Yes she was......every item was going back into her shopping cart.  Queue Jumper was not happy….she even used an expletive as I walked by her to the waiting cashier. 

I guess we are not in the land of pearls and white gloves at that grocery store anymore.  I didn’t realize it has become so cut throat!  What happened to civility?  What happened to politeness? 

Can’t we all just slow down and smell the coffee? 

(They don’t sell flowers at that store…)