Patience & Queue-Hopping!

This white man has advocated for a long time that if one wants to see people at their worst then all they need do is watch a queue for ten minutes. Even better, watch a series of queues waiting at multiple registers. Again my theory of malevolent human behaviour was proved correct in a local K-Mart today. Sure enough, the store was busy with sales flying out the door; yet of course there were not enough staff operating the registers as is the inconvenient norm at the most busy of times. One well-heeled dressed-to-the-nines middle-aged lady started up the typical anxious stretching and fidgeting behaviour that is the usual trigger for something worse to come. The craning of the neck, looking at the other queues and watching their progress. Then came the inevitable mumbling to self at the seemingly quicker progress of the adjacent queue to her. Her next move was obviously predictable...she made her first jump.

And then, as if the register gods needed to have a good belly laugh in that moment, the quicker queue she thought she'd moved to suddenly was halted by the customer at the register needing a price check on something. And on cue began the gesticulation of hands and louder cursing and general objections. Another neck crane and scan of the register scene and jump two took place...back to her original line but much to her chagrin she was now behind the people who were originally behind her (like you could see in her mind that she felt she had some 'right' to assume her 'rightful' place back in front of them!). Not to be! And of course, after waiting back in that queue, the people in front of her got to the register and, would you believe it, required a price check on one of their items! This woman was beside herself! She turned around to this white man, who had been waiting behind her patiently amused and started seeking third-party support for her injustice, which is another common reaction of aggrieved people in queues. "They should have more staff! This is ridiculous and so on..." The white man just smiled and nodded - agreeing that more staff would be advantageous but inwardly agreeing more certainly that this woman needed to "get a life!"

Proverbs 19:11 says "a man's wisdom gives him patience." If that is true, and I have no reason to question otherwise, then it simply confirms that there are just too many foolish people in queues in shopping centres and supermarkets everywhere. And they prove themselves foolish everyday when they can't stop for five minutes in their lives and just wait. Just wait. Just wait...Patience is a virtue for sure - so I guess this patient white man is just impatiently waiting for the rest of the queue to be more virtuous! Maybe I need to be more patient too!