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I try to avoid standing in lines like the plague. There are very few things that I hate worse than waiting in a line, especially when it involves spending my money. In my mind, any establishment who is trying to sell me something should do everything in its power to make my stay in a line as brief as possible.
Sure, if you are a major movie buff and you just have to see the latest flick the weekend it opens, it is expected. This is why, despite the fact that I am a movie buff, I don’t go on opening day. Age has taught me one thing, and that is that the movie will still be playing a couple of weeks from now if it is any good. That, and unless the film truly warrants a big screen viewing, I can wait even longer, like until it comes out on video.
Outside of what you can expect, like first run movies or Sam’s Club, it’s those lines, that to be honest, shouldn’t be there given the way the stores are set up or the ones that are created by the groups of consumers that for lack of a better term are lunatics, that truly make me crazy.
One of the great mysteries of our time is that of the unused check stands at drug stores. I truly believe they put them there as some sort of cosmic joke or maybe as a way to sell more blood pressure medication. I know that every time I am standing in a line at a drug store along with ten other people at the only check stand open, out of six check stands, my blood pressure rises with every second I stand there. I could swear that the other five unopened check stands haven’t been used in so long that there are multiple layers of dust and cobwebs on them.
While it is not as irritating as the franchised drug stores where you have one open and six closed, the same thing applies with Sam’s Club, Costco, and Ralph’s. Look guys, if you have lines that are snaking their way back through the frozen food departments like a boa constrictor, open some more check stands. And if the excuse is that you don’t have enough checkers, here’s a free management tip for you, HIRE SOME MORE!
There are a lot of people looking for jobs, so do one of two things, hire them or remove the excess check stands. It is one thing to not have enough check stands, it is another to have them and not use them.
What can even be more frustrating is when you have a specific list for a particular store, are you listening Sam’s Club, and one or more items on said list are missing. It is adding insult to injury. First, you waste time looking for something that was there the week before, to finally come to the realization that it has mysteriously vanished.
Then to stand in a line that is longer than a football field, dwelling on the fact that you didn’t get everything you came for, and the fact that five of the ten check stands are closed, makes you want to take the store hostage and start making demands. Like, “I want the two cases of Progresso New England Clam Chowder I came for and the rest of these check stands opened or I am going to start deep frying the ladies who are passing out free samples.”
I know I wouldn’t be alone should it come to that based on the amount of grumbling and bitching I hear while in line. People you would never normally talk to become, for the time you are in line, your allies and co-conspirators in the plan to attack the store’s management. Frustration makes strange bedfellows.
So this brings me back to the lunatic fringe I was referring to earlier. Those would be the ones who think that they are going to get some awesome deal by standing in lines for ridiculous amounts of time. The most absurd of those days being the Friday after Thanksgiving Day or as retailers throughout the land lovingly refer to it as “Black Friday”.
The retailers really have the American public by the nose when it comes to this one. They have gone from just opening earlier than usual, like say 5AM instead of 9 or 10 AM, to opening at midnight Thanksgiving night. Shopaholics, being the lemmings that they are, went right along with the program without a peep. Lots of them spent the night lined up outside of stores for the privilege of saving a few bucks on things that were probably marked higher so that their prices could be slashed lower just for the occasion.
And speaking of those spending the night in a self-created line, does anybody who wasn’t in line for a Playstation 3 understand that madness? I mean come on, it’s a damn video game! I’m sorry, I appreciate video games and upgraded technology, but no way is it worth, in case you didn’t hear, $600.00. Not only is it not worth that much money, it certainly isn’t worth spending the night, or multiple nights camped out in front of a Wal Mart.
But there they were on the evening news, hundreds of them, lined up, vying for one of the twenty units that the store had to sell. Why? Are these people’s lives so empty and starved for video game entertainment that they couldn’t wait a couple of months for the next batch to arrive? Would they be mocked and ridiculed by their friends if they weren’t the first ones on the block to have one? Good lord, if that is the case, get some new friends.
By the way some of these people were acting while waiting in line, I would be surprised if they had any friends outside of those they have made in their little video fantasylands. Fights breaking out, mad rushes through the store running to the electronics department, while knocking over children and old ladies with walkers in the process. The crowd as a whole was rude and unruly and I am sure won’t be asked to be the poster children for the video gaming industry.
I’m sure their bad behavior was because they spent too much time in line.
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