Get in Line

It's true I might be a little OCD and disorganization is a fingernail on the blackboard to me. It's also true I might be a teeny bit cognizant of humanity's inherent "sneakiness" and how it seeps out whenever there's an time-saving opportunity to take advantage of. But regardless of the reason, people who can't queue properly on a simple line gives my blood pressure a rude goosing.

Someone here apparantly has their own agenda... jerkface!

On second thought, forget my disorders - it's all about my laziness (or rather, my distaste for having to do unnecessary work). A line consisting of a group of people waiting for service in a clearly definable order of arrival is one of the simplest social tools we have. Without even blinking an eye, I can tell how many people are going to be helped before it's my turn. But when people decide that standing in one spot is just too damn much for their Attention Deficit Disorder to handle, suddenly I have to stay attentive and remember who arrived before me and who came around after me. And when I have to start paying attention to people, the blog community as a whole suffers.

I can't quite put my finger on the origins of my dislike for "line laxity", though it's been present most of my life. I do remember, however, a recent outing to a local department store that inspired this posting. Despite the presence of an obvious starting point (i.e. a woman standing patiently with an arm full of merchandise followed with me directly behind her), this old woman decided that she'd embark on her own personal line - backwards, no less. Newcomers were confused. Which was the correct course? Now we had two lines for a single goal, one of which was pointing in the direction of housewares for some unknown reason. Finally, the cashier directed us to one spot in an effort to quell her overwhelming desire to go on a shooting spree. The second line's leader didn't like this new arrangement and was quietly vocal about having to conform to someone else's standard of waiting. She was so busy complaining, in fact, that she neglected to go up to the cashier when it was her turn, holding up everyone else. They should give free internet access to social idiots like her so she can do her shopping on-line and save the rest of us from the aggravation.

Interestingly enough, some people's resistance to necessary crowd control fuels an entire industry of velvet rope (right) and numbered-ticket manufacturers. For all my reservations about the foibles of the impatient shopper, someone somewhere is putting together a digital display emblazoned with the words "now serving" and will be able to feed his family by doing so. So I can't, in good conscious, wish for an end to line disorder. But I don't have to loath it any less either.