You know this theory about how queues are messed up by the second person in line? Well, I was at 7-11 this afternoon to buy Coke for which I was craving since around lunchtime, and I just proved this theory right.
I came in and there was one person behind the counter (i.e. the cashier); there was no line yet. I grabbed a sandwich, stuck it in the microwave, then proceeded to pick up my Coke. So while I was waiting for the sandwich to get done, somebody went up the counter to pay, immediately followed by a second person, who from now on we’ll call Raquel, which is short for “Root of All QUeue EviL”. So while the cashier was ringing in the first person’s mini-grocery (around 8 items or so), Raquel, who was probably a bit bored, moved up front (but not-quite-beside the first person) to browse the magazines on display. That was fine, right? Wrong. Coz here came a third person who was a little shy to ask and a lot confused about where the original queue was, so he stood behind the first person. By now, the microwave had already made its little beeping sounds to tell me that it had finished its thing with my sandwich. But no, I just left it in and still didn’t move because I was observing the science of chaos in action.
So okay to recap the current queue layout, there was this first person still waiting for all of his stuff to be scanned (told you, mini-grocery), followed by the third person. Raquel, who was already engrossed with her browsing, now appeared to be forming a second line. It got better (read: more confusing). A fourth person came in, Tostillas in hand. Doing a quick judgment, she chose to be on Raquel’s “queue”. More people fell in line for each queue and it was already too late for the cashier to realize that she already had two long queues in front of her. Raquel, who was oblivious to everything, looked up from her free reading and decided to rejoin her rightful place in the original line, which was behind the first person. 
Fifteen minutes and multiple exchange of harsh words later, I was out of 7-11 with warm Coke and a cold sandwich. All hail, Eris! 
you should have slapped raquel silly.. hehe.
… “Root of All QUeue EviL” –> very creative .. heehee
Comment by Elle Cross — December 4, 2007 @ 10:23 pm |
Hmm… I’m not really the slapping type but I like the idea so much that in one of my future posts “Imma gonna be slappin dat biatch” with much enthusiasm and fervor.
Comment by thezenmonk — December 4, 2007 @ 10:58 pm |