People who cut in line (lame, naturally)

The BBQ Pit
1

This is a long story about how someone cut in line in front of me today. It’s a minor thing, but I needed to vent.

I ended up losing all of my haircare apparatus on a vacation (styling product, round brush, hair dryer) a few months ago. I am very lax on the hair-styling, so I hadn’t replaced the items until today. I have a amateur theater performance coming up next week, so I figured I should replace the items and get some practice using them over the weekend so I can make my hair look nice. I go to a CVS pharmacy that is particularly well-stocked on the beauty stuff to purchase everything I need.

Laden with a hair dryer, hair lotion, round brush, and a Hair Maid (recommended by another doper here for the hairstyling-impaired), I make my way to the checkout line. I say “line,” but this particular pharmacy has a rather poorly designed setup for checking out. They have a bank of four cash registers, but no ropes or arrows or signs or anything like that. I know from prior shopping trips that you are supposed to form individual lines in front of the cash registers (which I think less fair than forming one line and feeding off), but there’s no way for the casual shopper to know that. So, you sort of have to go along with whatever the people who are already in line are doing, unless an employee takes the time to come straighten you out.

I approach the line area, and there are two registers open with one person being helped at each, and there is a young man standing in the waiting area equidistant between the two. Obviously he is going to pick whichever opens up first. The store is pretty empty, so I decide I’ll just stand a little ways behind him and go along with it, rather than jump behind one of the people and have him think me rude. I know I could’ve said something to him at that point about forming two lines, but the store seemed quiet and it looked like we both would be helped shortly, so I opted not to. Oh dear.

A little old lady pops in from the side and gets behind one of the people being helped. I notice this, and as I am observing and thinking to myself “darn!” a middle-aged woman sneaks up behind me and says to me “it looks like she just cut in on us! maybe you should say something to her about it.” She eggs me on in this fashion, while I am thinking “do your own dirty work!” I wasn’t about to go bother some frail, hunched over, frizzy-haired little old lady about cutting in line. I’d just wait a little longer. Right then, the cashier helping the person in front of the little old lady (Line A) calls for a manager. Man, could that middle aged cunt move! She zipped right behind the young man, who had moved up to the right (Line B) and begun checking out while the middle aged cunt was trying to get me to bother the little old lady. I realize that I’m not going to get the best of this situation, even though the MAC knew full well that I was there long before her and the nice thing to do would’ve been to give me a chance to go to the shorter line first (one person in Line B and two people in Line A PLUS a manager assistance call), and I give up and move to the Line A.

I wait a while, my hackles smooth over a bit, and the person in front of the little old lady gets out of the store. So there is one person being helped in Line A, one person being helped in Line B, MAC is next in Line B, and I’m next in Line A. People have started piling up behind us as well. Then, a cashier goes to a register between the two lines and says “can I help the next person?”

Five or so people further back in the two lines shuffle about, as people who want to take a register but know it’s not their turn tend to do when such an announcement is made.

I think to myself, “she’d better not…”

Middle aged cunt ZOOMS.

I stretch my leg as far as it will go, and step right in front of her. The cashier gives me a look but begins to check me out. Whatever, I’m not about to let that boil on the rear end of humanity cut in line TWICE after imploring me to chastize some frail old lady for doing it once. I felt like I triumphed over MAC, but was aggravating to be treated like that.

2

*I stretch my leg as far as it will go, and … *

I was all ready to read - ‘and tripped the fucking cunt.’

3

Good for you!!! :smiley:

When I was in high school, I used to work fast food. The days that I was the cashier, every once in a while we’d get one of those jerks who jumped the line. I couldn’t stand it because the rightful next person would look at me hurt and be scared to say something for fear of retribution from the idiot. So I just decided to take the situations in my OWN hands and tell the jumper “this person was in line before you” or I’d simply ignore the jumper and serve the person waiting patiently in line. They NEVER got away with it when I was working. :mad:

4

Seems like an ambiguous check-out line situation, brought on by the line-straddler. At that point, social darwinism kicks in and the strongest win. This is why it is never good to straddle lines.

Much worse is when you have clearly defined lines and a new register opens up. Next in line, please :eek: 9 times out of 10, it’s stampede time! People come running from the back of lines, from the front of lines, and everything in between!

I usually duck, while covering my nuts.

5

I like what some supermarkets are doing now. When they open a new register, they actually come and grab the person in the front of another line and help them first, since that person has been waiting the longest. It used to be that some creepo at the end of the line would run over and be the first in line at the new checkstand, ahead of all the people who had been waiting longer.

Mark me down for disliking the “ambiguous” thing, too. Often, when I approach I line, I’ll just ask the person next to me, “Is this the line for [so and so]?” I don’t know if there’s a social taboo on actually voicing things like that out loud, though, because sometimes people just kind of look at me like I farted or something.

6

I dislike ambiguous lines, too. But the most head smacking moment in line for me came at an airport.

I was waiting in line at the airline’s service/baggage checkin desk, and I am about 5th or 6th in line when a considerable line has formed behind me. In fact, while the concourse is fairly wide, the line streches straight out from the desk nearly hitting the exit. Despite the zigzagging velvet curtains handily placed there by the airlines for just such an occurance. I mention to the couple people behind me in line that the airport probably wouldn’t like that, and you all should think about parking yourselves behind the squiggly lines rather than creating an obstruction for no good reason. They just stare at me blankly.

I only said it because it makes me slightly embarrassed when people around me are doing something wrong and people come and scold them for it. And sure enough, an airport attendant came and told them to make a properly-formed line. But it wasn’t my fault, as I had warned them.

7

This is because the people you’re asking didn’t ask, so they don’t know for certain. They just shuffled into the vaguely line-shaped mass of humanity that seemed to be in the general area of [so and so], and hoped that their efforts would prove successful. By asking, you are forcing their collective hand. No individual in the group wants to take the responsibility for answering in the affirmative and later being proven wrong, so you get a look of reproachful stares designed to carry the message “duh”, while conventiently and quite intentionally leaving out any trace of additional information (such as “YES, duh” or “NO, duh”). People don’t like it when you call attention to the fact that they don’t always know exactly what they’re doing in every given situation.

You can have lots of fun with this, if you have the proper combination of 90% inspiration, 9% boredom, and just a leeeettle touch of sadism. I highly recommend it. :slight_smile: