Thursday, September 08, 2005

Lines

There seems to be this new phenomenon of people not knowing proper line etiquette.

To wit, I went to CVS the other day and although I know better, I went at lunchtime. The line that I got in was quite long and of course there was only 1 cashier. After I was standing in the line for a few minutes another cashier went behind the counter to open her register. All of the customers start moving in place, patiently awaiting the magic words, "Next in line." The cashier did say the magic words and one person moved over. One person. Instead of others moving over and starting a second line, the line I was in become a feeder line for both cashiers.

Now this is not the first time I have seen this happening. I am a drug store nut so I am in CVS and Eckherd quite a bit. This has been happening more often than not for the past few months.

I have a theory that perhaps people are just too afraid of becoming a victim of line rage to take the initiative and move over and start a line. I'm sure you have been a witness to this sort of thing. Someone moves over to form a new line and someone starts shrieking, "I'm next, I was here. I'm next". So possibly to avoid someone have a conniption we now have "feeder lines". Any thoughts?

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