Lines

In the past week, I have seen two people who maxed out on waiting in line. The first woman was standing in a long line, holding a number of items, when suddenly she gasped and threw everything up into the air. It all came crashing down as she turned on her heel and stalked off. I gingerly stepped around the explosion, wondering if her exasperation level had been breached.

The next woman I encountered, stumbled up to the check out with rolls and rolls of bubble wrap and mailing envelopes. I’m sure this was to mail quite a number of gifts for Christmas. She was about number 4 in line and miserably waited for her turn. As the line moved up,with a great sigh, she finally managed to put all the stuff on the conveyer. I was just finishing up checking out when the cashier behind the counter informed her that he was closing, and no, he wouldn’t wait on her. She made some kind of strangling noise, turned rather red, and stomped off, abandoning her items. I looked at the cashier and asked if this kind of thing was happening more often, and he admitted that it was. And of course, I said that would never happen to me.

Well, my exasperation level was breached this afternoon. After waiting over an hour past my appointment time at the eye doctor’s office, and standing in 5 incredibly slow, long lines at various stores, I found myself overcome with frustration, exasperation, and finally anger. In fact, I felt just like the woman below.

   There are just too many people on this planet!

So...  I think it’s best this holiday season, to promise yourself that you won’t stand in more than 2 lines per day. You will try to keep an upbeat attitude, even though the person ahead of you is doing something incredibly stupid and slowing down the whole process even more, making it that much more painful!  You’re killing me here!  I’m sure that soon, we’ll have a name for this condition, like “going postal,” except it will be “going linear.”