A 30-something couple once cut in front of my boyfriend and I in a line to catch a bus. My boyfriend, very politely, pointed out they had cut in line, and the woman absolutely flipped out. The stream of obscenities was truly amazing, culminating in “SHIT FUCK FUCK”. He never raised his voice at all, and concluded by stating that they clearly needed the place in line more than we did.
No. Curie darts. Radioactive. They take longer but definitely worth the wait.
I am a “don’t take no for an answer” kinda guy. There is no human way you are getting in front of me at any line. I was a total jerk to this old lady at the bank. She just walked past the line and smiled at the teller, who obviously knew her. I called on her from 5 places back on the line.
She turned and replied “the don’t give coffee to just anyone in this bank”.
“You can drink all the begged coffee you want while you wait in line”
She turned all colours. Nobody on the bank looked poised to do anything about her, of course. She kept muttering things.
“This is why this bank is the piece of crap it has always been” I yelled.
Then the bank got really noisy as everyone started a conversation with the next in line about how much this bank sucked.
Some suit popped out and sat her in a chair. Took her transaction papers very discreetly and disappeared. Someone else brought her coffee, but I don’t think she drank it. It was my turn and I left before she did.
At least the cashier had the decency of being apologetic for the whole thing. “she comes here all the time and is a friend of Mr. Whatshisface. We have to do it”
It all depends.
I actually don’t generally mind waiting in line, probably because I do it so little - I go to the automated machines 9 times out of 10 when possible. If someone looks really frazzled and seems to be in a hurry and the line is moving, I generally don’t care. The energy it takes to get het up over that stuff and bring in a management type is usually not worth it. I figure I’ve extended my life for a few minutes by letting it go.
There are a number of extenuating circumstances about standing in line that allows some people to skip ahead: having a few friends go to the restroom, that kind of stuff. Sometimes people are confused about where the line starts because of the inadequate barriers. Other people think standing in line means standing as close as you can to the person in front of you (I hate this), until they’re standing next to you.
What the OP is describing is out-and-out rudeness, and it’s got nothing to do with SES and race. (I laughed at loud at that explanation.) Teenagers tend to be the more impulsive, authority-disregarding folks on the planet. Those girls were rude and counted on their numbers and their ability to shout down anyone who protested to allow them to do what they wanted. I’ve seen White and Latino kids to the same thing. They probably also counted on the intimidation factor a little as well.
What the OP described is one of the reasons I don’t go to amusement parks, movie theatres, etc. so much. You have to deal with rude assed people, and as a former teacher and student affairs professional, I’ve have enough of that for a lifetime. The “fun” one has at those places is rarely worth the aggro if you ask me.
Now if I started yelling Hey “Rosa”! Back of the fucking bus! would that be considered racist?
Is that you, Putin? :eek:
I don’t really go to amusement parks or movie premieres anymore, so the claims of line cutting by young black females is new to me. What I am familiar with is in merging traffic, where the culprits are usually middle class white men, or if driving on the shoulder in traffic, young working class white males.
In airports, when boarding in sections, it cuts across all lines, although it is generally with white folks, but that may be that minorities are even greater minorities on airplanes, at least in the places I travel to. There are people with the big black “4” on their tickets trying to board with the infants and strollers and wheelchair bound. At least airlines now seem to be turning these people away at the gateway now. They used to grumble and let them through anyway.
I have related this story before in other threads…
One time, while waiting in line at the grocery check out, I realized that I had forgotten an item. I left the cart in control of my daughter (9 yrs old), and left to get the item. There were people behind us.
I got the item, and returned (total time gone, 1 minute, 20 seconds , MAX).
As I returned, an elderly woman had pushed in front of my daughter, and turned around saying something like “Younger people should respect their elders!”…
Not missing a beat, I turned to my daughter and said… “Let her in Maggie… she’s old and (Grim emphasis) will obviously die soon, and probably alone and unloved…”…
The cashier was nothing buit smiles… as were the rest of people in lione who had seen her violently jam her cart into line…
She (the elderly lady) did everything she could to show how infirm and burdoned by age she was as she paid, but I think that the lesson is “you can teach an old bitch new tricks…”
regards
FML
Georgi Markov learned the hard way not to cut in line. 
That reminds me of an incident that had me scratching my head a while ago - I was standing in line at Sears (not a long line, maybe three people), and a lady came up and stood right beside my husband and I. Not behind us, not cutting in front of us, but right beside us, like she was our friend and was waiting with us. She didn’t try to go in front of us or anything, either. Just weird. The close standers bug the crap out of me, too. This is Canada here; if I can reach my arm out and touch you, you are too close to me. The line doesn’t move any faster from you standing on my heels. I haven’t worked up the nerve to tell people to back off like that yet, but I think I will someday.
That reminds me of a great line-jumping story from last Christmas, too. I was waiting in line at Sears again (why yes, I DO shop there a lot), and this one was a long one (they actually served us chocolates in line - that should become a new tradition for Xmas shopping). While everyone was patiently waiting, an old guy came up and tried to go straight to the cashier and pay for his package of undies. The cashier (a fairly old bird herself) told him straight off to go to the back of the line in no uncertain terms. His response was that he didn’t want to wait, and her response was too bad, git. Best wait in line I’ve ever had. 
I completely agree with you about the arms length thing.
On the other hand(arm?), you have the people who stand so far behind the person in front of them that they don’t even appear to be in line, but will indignantly yell at you that they were next, when you get in front of them.
Oh geez, this is the Land of Line Jumpers. Don’t EVEN get me started.
I would absolutely raise a stink about it to the ride operators and their supervisors if it happened at an amusement park. Patrons pay no paltry amount to be there, and waiting in lines is part of the unpleasant experience they stick you with. It is irresponsible of the park not to keep an eye on appropriate use of the lines, and they should have strong no-cutting policies. Customers shouldn’t have to police the line and get into confrontations to protect their rightful place in lines.
Standing in line and waiting your turn is one of those socialized activities that happens so young and so thoroughly in our culture (for most of us, anyway), that I always forget it’s actually taught at all. The idea of instead teaching my toddler, “Go ahead, go get it, push that boy out of your way, come on, let’s get to the front!” is just…bizarre. I can’t wrap my head around it being a desirable trait to teach kids.
Meanwhile, some mother in Bangkok is wondering why I let my kid get pushed aside and why I don’t teach her that she deserves the best choice and to be waited on first…just like everyone else. Think what I must be doing to her self-esteem and chances in life, teaching her that she always comes last!
By jumping the line. Duuuhhh!
By the way, what is “it”?
It’s taken me far, far too long to be at peace with the fact that I am one huge mofo.
I generally don’t use my size to intimidate people. But line jumpers? Well, I don’t rightly recall it ever happening to me.
After dealing with negative stereotypes in the “groups of young Black girls” sub-discussion, now comes a positive stereotype. Mr. Bonden assumes a posteriori (Latin: “out of one’s ass”) that anyone publicly standing up for decent polite behavior must somehow be connected with the Marine Corps. I don’t think American society is quite THAT far gone (although I’m sure a few Marines would disagree).
It’s even worse in China. I heard that when McDonald’s first opened there, the customers got into actual fistfights trying to shove to the front of the line. Never encountered anything that extreme there myself, but if my mind wandered when someone in front of me moved forward, without fail somone would jump right into the opened-up space.
I’m reminded of the time in Kathmandu when the wife and I went to buy bus tickets for upcountry. We found the ticket stand, and it was complete pandemonium. Not even the semblance of a line, just all these guys shoving each other out of the way to get to the window. I was trying to figure out the best place to jump in, when suddenly it was noticed that a couple of foreigners were there, and then these guys not only got out of our way, but they helped us make the ticket-seller understand where we wanted to go. They were really great. Then after we finished the transaction, they resumed their shoving match.
I also remember reading something about the queuing-for-buses law being repealed in Britain some years back and that the locals were so used to queuing up, they were surprised to learn there ever WAS a law. It had just come natural.
Of course, he may have been in uniform, being as he was traveling in an airport and all. Or wearing one of those shirts that say USMC on them. Or, given the long line and the inevitable small talk that arisises in long lines, he might have mentioned he was shipping out next week. But here, you win a Jump To Conclusions Mat of your very own!
I’ll go off on line jumpers. I don’t care how old they are, what color they are, what sex they are. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” is my opening remark. I hate that shit. Plus I have rage issues.
Actually I had seen his ID.