The Art of Standing In Line

I'm not a shopper. I can't stand indecision. Shopping for clothes for me goes like this... does it look good? Yes! Buy 2 in different colors. Leave, and hopefully never come back. It's not a process I enjoy, unless I am shopping for music. So my food shopping experience is done late night for the reason of swiftness. I'm sure you can understand this. This evening, I went to my local weenie mart for provisions. It took me about 5 minutes to select the food and  beverages I needed and I went to check out. There was a line of 6 people, and I saw there was only one automated checkout aisle open. The only employee was bagging and dealing with the malfuction of said checkout aisle. I decided to wander around instead of stand on this ridiculous line at such a late hour. After familiarizing myself with all the cooking utensils, plates and felt floor/furniture protectors and all the cakes in the bakery--who knew someone would want a Bastille Day cake-- I circled around to where the registers were, only to find there were now 11 people in the line, which I joined begrudgingly. As a notorious multitasker, standing in line rubs me the wrong way, in a BIG way. All I could do was joke about the ridiculousness of the line with my new neighbors suffering the same fate as myself. And then I remembered. About a year ago I was in the Shop Rite nearest to WFMU. I don't remember what I was purchasing. I had been in the express lane and was about 5 people back and a huge guy cut the line. You would think that he had murdered someone. He pushed past myself and all the others straight up to the cashier, and said something like "I know I'm an asshole, but I got to go!". The cashier didn't want to ring him up because he clearly cut the line in front of us, but he wouldn't leave. My companions in line were pissed and flipping out on him. It was very confrontational, and for some reason I found it really interesting.

We learn about standing in line, long before we can actually stand in line ourselves. We may be with our parents, and someone is holding us or we are in the little seat in the shopping cart. We may actually be used as a place holder to keep someone's place in line although we are too young to participate in what we are standing in line for when we get to the register, the counter, or the ride, or what have you. It's interesting what we do when someone breaks this quiet code of "how to stand in line" and what range it goes from. For instance, if you're in a line that is rapidly moving, yet the person in front of you is distracted and not moving up quickly enough, we notice how annoyed we get, and may say something or even "accidentally" nudge them with our shopping cart. I saw a Facebook post from a friend recently who was given a hard time, perhaps in that very same Shop Rite, because he had more than the suggested items for the Express Lane. I'm not a line jumper, and am pretty well behaved in a line. I must confess, if someone who is in line in front of me leaves the line for some reason and doesn't tell me they'll be right back, I absolutely relish in the action of moving up to close up the spot that they left, and if they return to the line, not giving them back as much space as they had in the first place. "Oh no, you left," she says silently to herself... So back to the guy at Shop Rite. The cashier told him she wouldn't ring him up. All of us in the "Express Lane", began to be concerned about our time. I mean, we develop a strategy to shopping light enough just to be able to go IN the Express Lane in the first place, right? We were all in the middle of a losing proposition. It didn't come to blows, but a supervisor had to be called, and the shopper held his ground;  "I'm not moving, just ring me up...whadya gonna do- call the cops?" He was right. I eventually became the one who started the chant of "ring him up", not because I was on his side, but because I wanted to get out of there. Uproar in Shop Rite turned into resignation and disgust. Protocol in Jersey City is about as basic as you can get; do what you won't get arrested for. Perhaps he only wanted an argument.

Comments

[King bed dimensions]

Great post.I will make certain to bookmark your blog and may come back very soon. I want to encourage yourself to continue your great work, have a nice holiday weekend!