Cutting the queue

If you grew up in a western nation, when you were in elementary school your teacher taught you how to make a line. It’s really not a difficult concept. I remember in first grade we would form a line to go to another class, lunch, etc. If we were being noisy, we had to walk with a finger on our lips and a hand on our hip to remind us not to talk. Then we learned to transfer this to things like the lunch line. Whoever gets in line first gets lunch first; no one marches up to the front of the line, shoves someone out of the way, and orders. And if they tried that, there would surely be some consequences to pay. I honestly never realized how valuable of a lesson this was until I ventured into the eastern hemisphere. Or maybe just this particular country, I’m not sure yet. For those of you who aren’t aware, this golden nugget of info cannot be filed into the “common sense” folder of the brain for the entire world.

You see, most days I want to teach people how to form a line here. And I’m not talking about small children, I’m talking about adults. Yes, ADULTS that have absolutely zero concept of what a line is or what it stands for. This happens at the metro, restaurants, the movies, and perhaps scariest of all, the women’s bathroom. I know that line has a terrible reputation and it can be impossibly long, but it could be much worse my friends. You could have to deal with bathrooms where there are about four stalls and a sort of line, but for the most part, women either pace and shrewdly wait to cut in front of someone or plant their body directly in front of a stall, basically blocking the person in there so they can’t get out before letting her in. That just seems to be breeding ground for a cat fight. Talk about survival of the fittest - a women’s restroom in an Asian country. If you didn’t know already, it’s not a place you want to be.

So the next time you are annoyed about standing in a line that’s not moving as quickly as you want it to, be glad you aren’t standing so close to people that you can feel them breathing on you, so as not to leave a space for someone to squeeze in. Or that you aren’t having to strategically use your elbows to keep people from shoving you out of the way.

On the bright side, I’ve learned that you NEVER ask if there’s actually a line. If you aren’t sure, you just breeze through the people and go straight to the counter like you own the place. I’m not thrilled with the fact that I’ve used this insensitive (and obnoxious) behavior and don’t make it a habit. Survival skills, I’m telling you. I promise that I won’t think this is acceptable behavior upon returning to America one day.

Sidenote: Queue is the word the Brits (and former British territories) use for "line" and it appears to be four letters longer than it really needs to be.