OK, I admit it, there are some things that I am just no damned good at. Waiting in line is one of them. In my mind waiting in line is a complete bloody waste of my time. And a serious threat to the health and well-being of any poor soul unfortunate enough to be ahead of me in said line. I have about a half a nano-second worth of patience on a good day but if you make me stand in line all bets are off. My fuse is about as short as a handful of fireworks in the pocket of a drunk in a trailer park.
My first experience with standing in line was in kindergarten at milk break time. Not a pleasant experience. Who the fuck thought it was a good idea to make 5-year olds queue up for milk??? Milk!!! What the hell was up with that??? I felt like I was trapped in some unholy pre-school Auschwitz!!! I was so pissed off I just wanted to kick that nun right in the nuts!!! And the lunch line wasn't much better. I just saw no sense to be made to stand in line for 5 minutes for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, a couple of squares of hospital jello and half a bloody apple. And then to be forced to say grace to give "thanks" for that feast was the final insult. By that point the Wonder bread had dried out, the jello had congealed and the apple had turned a rather muddy shade of brown. And I'm supposed to be thankful???
I remember standing in line to get my drivers license. By the time I got to the counter they had actually changed the design of the application. I remember standing in line to get my state I.D. card on my 18th birthday. By the time I actually left the building I was 19, had a mustache and looked nothing like the picture. Don't even ask about the time I went in to pay my first speeding ticket. By the time it was all over blood had been shed and the Feds had actually raised the speed limit back up to 65 mph. I wanted to go back in and see if I couldn't get a refund grandfathered in somehow but I knew that by the time I finally managed to make it to the counter I would be using a walker and cars would actually be able to fly.
To this day things have not improved. If you are in front of me in line you will hear me groan, you will hear me grunt my disapproval, you will hear that "sound from the back of the cave noise" that I am famous for. Hell, you may even get spit on. I do not care how long the line is nor do I care how many people are in front of you. You are in front of me. YOU are holding ME up. ME!!! That is all that matters...
Only one thing riles me more that standing in line. That is when someone becomes my own personal human tope. Ah, yes, a tope. It's a wonderful Spanish word that is pronounced "toe-pay". It means speed bump. Or, as I like to translate it, "Hey, you mind-numbing turd, are you seriously going to plant your ass right there if front of me???". Today while grocery shopping I was tope'd at every turn. With reckless abandon, if you will. I was forced to give one shopper my cell phone number so she could call me when she was done squeezing ALL of the avacados. I was forced to ask another shopper who left all of her crap piled in the scale so she could start a conversation on her cell phone if she would mind if I used HER scale to weigh my apples. I graciously tossed 3 cans of imported white asparagus into the cart of the bitch that was blocking my access to my favorite brand of horse radish while she read the label on a bottle of French's yellow mustard like it was something on the NY Times best seller list. But I truly hit my stride when I got tope'd in tuna. Did you know that I can belch at will like a longshoreman? Not only that but I can follow it up with that noise that sounds like I'm getting ready to cough up a lugey the size and shape of Cuba. What can I say, it all boils down to one thing: MOVE!!!
Now, where did I put that monkey???
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