What Would You Wait in Line for?

I’ve always hated waiting for my turn. When I was much younger, I hated waiting for my mom to kick my siblings off of the Wii so I could have my turn to play LEGO Star Wars or Mario Kart without using the god awful diagonal split screen. Now that I’m older and wiser, I’ve realized that patiently waiting for my turn still sucks. What’s worse is just how common lines are: stop-lights, Chipotle, the bathroom, etc. 

If I can avoid a line, I’ll take that opportunity without hesitating. I know people at Uni love Chipotle, and I do too, but there is no excuse for lining up outside in order to get your burrito bowl. There are so many great places to buy food on Green Street; I don’t see how waiting in line for food could be worth it. That said, I willingly wait in line for food everyday. The kitchen microwaves make my day worse without fail. No matter how quickly I run downstairs from physics, I just can’t seem to beat the line. On multiple occasions, I’ve seen people start microwaving their food before the bell even rings. What am I supposed to do? Should I leave class early so I can microwave my food faster? And so, I wait in line everyday and hate it. 

What if I told you there was a secret to never waiting in line? Cutting. Sneakily, brazenly, back-cuts, front-cuts: I’m unashamed to have tried every trick in the book. When someone leaves their food in the microwave, I’ll take it out for them when it’s done. The lines you are able to cut in are mostly the daily-ones, like traffic back-ups, that no one, other than me it seems, cares too much about waiting in. (Although, in traffic I can just say I’m zipper merging and pretend like I’m being selfless.)

If I have to travel a considerable amount of time to do something, I like to follow a rule of thumb – you should spend twice as much time doing the thing you traveled to do as you spend getting there. The same rule applies for lines. 

Some things are just worth the wait. The DMV is notorious for its especially awful lines, but waiting in line in order to receive my driver’s license was well worth it.  I know it may seem odd for me to arrive at the conclusion that waiting for the opportunity to use the microwave is unacceptable but waiting at the DMV of all places is okay. My dream world would have no lines for anything no matter how big or how small, but all the best things in life come with a line. There’s a reason everyone is willing to wait for Diwali, because it’s worth it. Waiting for a library book, food, etc all suck, but the reason I’m lining up in the first place is because I still want whatever it is regardless of the wait.