Line Busting

Nearly everyone knows and can commiserate with having to wait in line. I will be bold in stating that Army spouses hold top honors in having to do that, and often! It has gotten better in recent years as different systems are put in place.

For instance, our pharmacy has a numbering process. You hand in a prescription at the counter, and are handed a number and you might be told, it will be about 45 minutes, or 2 hours, or come back tomorrow!

Yesterday I did just that. And I had a magazine so I settled in for my usual wait. But the PX Pharmacy has an added new twist. There is a scrolling electronic board that lists the names of completed RXs, and I thought, oh, that's nice, now I will know when the prescription is ready. But the numbers were also electronically placed above each pick-up window, so you would know when your number was up. I faithfully watch both boards, and then I notice something curious.

When we get to within three numbers of the number on my ticket, the line behind that ticket window is about 7-8 people deep. I then see my name on the scroll board. I step up to the line and ask "aren't they going by numbers?" The folks in front of me have numbers that are higher than mine, and at this point I am, frankly, a bit confused. They answered, well, yes, but you can get in line as soon as your name is on the board. I say to no one in particular, Then why do we have numbers? They try to answer this, but not to my satisfaction. And I say, I don't mind following the rules, but they should have told me that when they gave me the numbered ticket.

Anyway, these ladies were not going to give up there place in line, my ticket superseding theirs' notwithstanding. And getting a frantic call from the Beave who was going to be late to his soccer game didn't stir up any empathy either.

What I hadn't thought of was this. The pharmacy fills the orders by number. How had their names popped up before mine? Or maybe they hadn't. Maybe they had just gotten in line when they thought it was close enough that their order would be filled by the time they got to the window. In the one ladies case, it hadn't been and they had to fill it then. Now this brings us to the question of line cutting . . . it's a terrible thing.

These "sooners" are the same type of people who in a traffic jam cut out onto the berm or refuse to feed their cars nicely after a ballgame. What do you do with folks like this? Well, I know what I do. Dislike them!