I'm Next

I stopped at the grocery store on the way home from work yesterday.

Nothing exciting. Grab dinner. Stand in line. Go home.

The cashiers were clearly new because every line in the place was moving at the speed of continental drift. No big deal. I picked a line and waited. Life's too short to get pissed off over things that are completely out of your control.

Eventually I worked my way toward the front. I turned my cart slightly toward the lane to my right for two reasons. First, so people could actually get through the aisle instead of having to squeeze around me. Second, because if either cashier suddenly found religion and started scanning groceries faster, I had options.

I was next either way.

The woman in front of me noticed and laughed that she should've switched lanes sooner.

Then she looked at me and said something that caught me completely off guard: "You could move over there. Nobody's going to mess with you. I mean... look at you."

That one stuck with me. Do I really come across as that intimidating?

I don't feel intimidating.

I smile at people. I enjoy talking to strangers. Hell, I generally like people.

But apparently I look like someone you don't cut in front of.

Interesting.

A minute later, the woman behind me decided she wanted to know which line I was in.

"I'm next," I said.

She asked again.

"I'm next."

What she really wanted was for me to commit to one line so she could slide into the other one ahead of me.

No. That's not how lines work.

She explained that she wanted to start unloading her groceries.

I pointed out that nobody in the history of grocery stores has ever delayed checkout because they couldn't get their groceries onto the conveyor belt fast enough. The bottleneck wasn't me. It was the brand-new cashiers trying their best.

Moving me wasn't going to make anything faster. It was just going to move her ahead of me.

"I'm next."

She didn't seem to like that answer.

Neither did I.

Because somewhere along the way we've convinced ourselves that if we can find a clever angle, it's okay to jump ahead of someone else. We call it efficiency. We call it getting ahead. We call it being proactive.

It's none of those things. It's just cutting in line.

Maybe that's why it irritated me so much.

Not because it was groceries. Because fairness matters to me.

If you've been waiting longer than I have, you should go first. If I've been waiting longer than you have, I should go first.

That's the deal.

It's simple.

Lately I've found myself wondering if we've forgotten that.

Whether it's traffic, grocery stores, workplaces, or just life in general, everyone seems convinced they're the exception. That their hurry is somehow more important than everyone else's.

Maybe that's the real pandemic.

Not COVID.

Entitlement.

Anyway...

I got my groceries.

I stayed next.

And apparently I look intimidating enough that nobody was willing to argue about it for very long.

I still don't know how I feel about that.