The worst lineups of all time include:
• Airport security. Plastic bins, loafers, keychains, and laptop computers fly in all directions in the maddening chaos of the airport security lineup. People are getting the beepdown and guards are tearing through suitcases looking for Terrorism, while folks jostle about awkwardly, emptying and refilling pockets, the whole place smelling like sweaty feet.
• The bank at lunchtime on Friday. Hey, even if you’re just trying to get at the ATM, chances are good you’ll get stuck behind someone making four or five deposits.
• Wherever you get your driver’s license renewed. Toss some mugshot photos and a few eye exams in the mix and that lineup will just wrap around and around and around all day.
• The bathrooms just after a movie lets out. How bad does it feel when the lineup is long enough that it reaches right up to the inside of the bathroom door but no further? And you’re the person who opens the door to find a bunch of fidgety folks wedged in that little Bathroom Lobby with their arms crossed and their faces all scrunched up. It’s just a sardine tin of quiet, anxious, heavy-bladdered folks, man. Not a great scene.
• Post-Christmas Returns line. This one is the worst of all. Honestly, you may as well just keep that novelty wine bottle opener and ice cream maker at this point. Just give up, go home, and drown your sorrows in a big bottle of Merlot and a bowl full of warm, runny ice cream.
So yeah, there sure are some terrible lines out there. Sometimes you beat them, sometimes they beat you, but one thing’s for sure — it’s a great feeling when you enter one of those classically long and winding lineups just before it gets long and winding.
Yes, when you’re first through the maze of velvet ropes, when you grab the empty handicapped stall in the corner, when you get the new line at the DMV with the lady who just came off her break, well — doesn’t it sort of feel like you bucked the system or solved a mysterious riddle of life?
That’s when you can hardly believe your luck. You look back at the poor souls waiting and you just smile sadly, because you know you’ve been there before and you know you’ll be there again.
But this time you won the game, you’re riding high, and you’re feeling so completely
AWESOME!
