Well, it happened again. My problem with \u201cline\u201d people. This time it was in a Dunkin Donuts in an unnamed city south of here. The place doesn\u2019t matter; it can happen anywhere that line-challenged people go, causing old coots like me to simmer in line behind them. I\u2019ve bellyached about these people so many times you\u2019d think I\u2019d get over it, and I have, to a degree. I\u2019m ready for the people who stand there for five minutes staring at the menu and when it\u2019s their turn go blank, the people who are surprised they need to dig out their wallet and get money to pay. The people who yak into a phone and have to be nudged every few minutes to move up.<\/p>\n
But my most recent encounter introduced me to the \u201cline clump\u201d phenomena. Two couples and five kids formed the clump. Blocking off the entire counter. It started okay, the fathers jumped in front of everybody and ordered coffee. Nice and simple: regular, hot coffee, no extras, no special mixes. Just coffee. That was a ruse, to trick me into thinking the clump wouldn\u2019t be a problem. The kids, after their mothers pulled them apart and shoved them to the counter, went next. Not toddlers, mind you. Pre-teens and teenagers. The first one, a ten year old, couldn\u2019t decide. After a minute of gazing at the donut rack, he raised his arm and pointed. \u201cI\u2019ll have that!\u201d The clerk had no idea where he was pointing, but took a guess, \u201cThis one?\u201d \u201cNo. That one,\u201d he yelled. \u201cThis one?\u201d On and on it went. He had terrible aim; he should get his finger sighted in the next time he uses it to point. \u00a0Finally, the right one was determined.<\/p>\n
Then came the drink decision. That only took thirty seconds of contemplation. \u201cMilk!\u201d Of course milk is in the cooler he was standing in front of for five full minutes before it was his turn. The clump parted, like the Red Sea, and he made his way to the cooler, grabbed a container of chocolate milk, getting a glare from his sister and a, \u201cMom said you can\u2019t get chocolate milk,\u201d from his brother.<\/p>\n
One by one the little darlings made their way to the front of the clump and went through a similar process. Then, came the elder siblings, full-blown teenagers. All girls. They knew precisely what they wanted; a complicated latt\u00e9 prescription that would cause registered pharmacists to reel if they had to follow the formula. I couldn\u2019t. I know it involved whipped cream, shots of this and that, ice on the side and a few other additions that must have been Latin words because I\u2019d never encountered them before.<\/p>\n
Finally the moms, the only real adults in the clump, came forth with their orders. And, then got into a fight over who was going to pay. \u201cI\u2019ve got it!\u201d \u2013 \u201cNo, I\u2019m getting it.\u201d No you\u2019re not!\u201d An embarrassed wise elder from the teen group stepped forward and said, \u201cWhy don\u2019t you each just pay your own tab?\u201d The look on the cashier\u2019s face was priceless. She\u2019d rung it up as a single order; now she had to pull it apart. At this point I wasn\u2019t annoyed any longer; this had turned into a \u201chappening.\u201d It felt like I was in the middle of a flash mob. I just chuckled to myself and watched the show. Yet another chapter in my handbook on line behavior. I\u2019m slowly becoming the Emily Post of queue etiquette.<\/p>\n
Comments, complaints: send to mlessler7@gmail.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Well, it happened again. My problem with \u201cline\u201d people. This time it was in a Dunkin Donuts in an unnamed city south of here. The…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-51003","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorial"],"yoast_head":"\n