Line Dynamics

People in New York are very particular about their lines.  Lines should be a pretty easy thing to figure out, right?  We are all waiting here, one by one, to obtain a service of some kind.  Let's say we're in the drug store.

We've already been through the hassle of shopping in a crowded store, where we are practically crawling over each other to get the toothpaste we want.  We've got our handheld grocery carts sticking out at all angles, cluttering up even more space, and it doesn't help when the people around you seem to have an attitude about why you can't be at this place at this time.  You turn around the corner and barely miss knocking over a mother and child, for which you apologized profusely, and by the time you find the deodorant section, you find that they don't even have the kind that you want, or that it costs about 20% more than it would anywhere else in the country.  And you just weren't expecting that.  

So, by the time I'm ready to check out, I've already had it with people, and I don't need any more nonsense.  I see there are three separate lines.  Logic and politeness tells me that I should be served following the people who have gotten here before me.  So I gravitate somewhere in the middle and keep my eye on all three lines, waiting to determine which one I should enter.

"There are three separate lines!" somebody yells behind the counter.  I can see there are three separate lines, but naturally, I would like to be in the one that is going to serve me the fastest and in the proper order in which I came to check out to begin with.

I don't understand the purpose of corralling people into separate lines if they are not going to be served in the right order.  That happens all the time, though.  People in New York don't care about lines at all.  It's evident in a lot of respects.  They cross the street when they're not supposed to, they weave in and out of foot traffic, minding no order to it whatsoever, and then there is this business with actual lines.  People cut in front of you right and left.  They do anything to get ahead of you.  Who are you, anyway?  You're just standing there.

Grocery store delis have always done it the right way.  They can't tell who got there before anybody else, so they have the number system.  Everybody pulls a number and the numbers are called in numerical order, thus giving justice to the line system.

It creates a waste of useless paper, and maybe that's why other places don't do it, but it could be used as confetti.  Don't these people have parties?

Whatever the problem is, the line situation in New York is not anywhere close to being resolved.  With the advent of Starbucks and self check-outs, line dynamics are only going to get more difficult to interpret.  Maybe someday, we'll have a future without lines at all.