Get In Line

I'm special. OK, I said it. You all know I was thinking it, but now I've just gone right out and stated it as fact. How do I know this true? Endless observation of natural phenomena which all support my theory that I am special. The universe has allotted a place for me, unique from any other and reinforces this universal constant every day in a hundred different ways.

Unfortunately for me, all of those ways involve inserting new and unique times and reasons for me to wait in line. If you consider driving as also being part of a queue, the universes assertion that I wait becomes even more clear. I'm not talking about ordinary hanging about in line while people in front of you perform ordinary tasks nearly identical to what you are queued up for. No, this is about being in line at Safeway when the person in front of you decides to use the checkout stand to launch a hostile takeover of the chain, and has coupons for it. Unbeknownst to many of us, there's an item on the shelf of each Safeway (near the dog toys) called "Controlling Interest in SWY" Only $345,000,000 with your Safeway card! The person in front of me always seems to buy this item, along with their cigarettes (which the checker must then leave the checkstand, walk to the font of the store and retrieve using iris scanning technology from the cigarette fortress) their inexplicable 32 packages of Peanut butter Cups and 3 cotton swabs. Oh, and they will be paying by check, which they will not start making out until the SEC has approved the stock transaction.

Why don't I just move to another line you ask? You may as well ask why I don't just set Planck's Constant to a nice round number, like 10, or maybe change gravity so that attraction of objects is not from center of mass, but randomly at 5 degrees off of center in some direction. I've tried ALL of these things (remember the Seattle earthquake of 2001?) but universal constants are annoyingly stubborn. Switching line in Safeway guarantees that the person in front of me, with $737.34 in groceries already rung up will a) dispute the pricing of the bananas b) claim that there is a gravity anomaly directly under the produce scale causing a 3% overcharge and c) decide that they really did want the can of spray pancakes and run to the back of the store to get it - mid transaction. They don't realize of course that the gravity anomaly under the scale is actually an escaped micro-black hole (thanks Hadron Collider, for NOTHING) which will follow them to the spray pancake batter aisle and transport them to the spray pancake universe via wormhole. Meanwhile, I'm still waiting in line to buy cleaning products which I am most certainly NOT planning to use other than in accordance with their labeling.

The grocery store is just one example, but this sort of thing happens to me all of the time. Ferry waiting lines (the person in front is a pirate and would like them to waive the over-height fee since they will be taking command of the vessel anyway), toll booths (the person in front is Native American and would like to take this moment to assert their right to cross, using the traditional $80 million suspension bridge their ancestors have used for hundreds of years without paying a toll) or perhaps the feed store (person in front of me would like 700 lbs of fertilizer and 200 gallons of diesel fuel -- on credit, please just dump it all in the big vat, thanks.)

So, I wait in line, knowing that any lane changes or abrupt modifications to my own behavior will only result in unimaginable forces being mobilized to maintain some sort of balance in the world. Speaking of balance, why is everyone else in line leaning randomly 5 degrees off center?