We're Waiting...

Some things in life simply can't be helped. As much as we would like to cut out anything which makes us unhappy, certain activities must be suffered through. For example, waiting in line. No one likes to wait in line because it is a giant waste of time. Also, it prevents us from moving on to the next activity and moving from activity to activity is essentially what makes the world go round. We have finished our shopping and now we want to either go home or to another location, yet society dictates we stand in one spot and wait patiently to hand over money, which is another thing we don't want to be doing. That just adds another level to the whole line experience: I don't want to do this anyway and now you are making me waste time before I do. Still, to combat these thoughts what I like to do is use my time in line to make sure that the coming transaction is over as quickly as possible. If I plan to pay by cash I take out my wallet and attempt to figure out what the final tally will be so that I have the amount in my hand. If I am paying by card than the least I can do is have the card ready to go. The people I can not figure out are the one who wait until they are at the register to start this process. If you hate standing around so much, why not use that time to make sure the people behind you don't have to wait as long?

This afternoon I went to mail a letter (I know, this in and of itself is peculiar). My town's post office happens to feature a place where you can drive up and drop your letters into mailboxes without getting out of your car. I know it sounds incredibly lazy (because it is), but that doesn't change the fact that it is also faster. Parking, unbuckling my seatbelt, getting out of my car, walking across the street to the regular mailboxes and dropping the letters in, then walking back to my car may only take a minute, but that is about 50 seconds longer than it takes to drive up to a mailbox and flip the letter into the appropriate blue container. Again, this is why you should always use the drive-through at the bank, no matter how long the line is. At least, normally it moves that fast. Today I was the fourth car in line. I didn't hop out because I thought the line would continue to move at the brisk pace to which I am accustomed, but the problem was the first woman in line apparently was new to either the concept of driving, driving this particular car or how mailboxes worked, because she had been forced to drive passed the mailbox and open her car door to get her letters to the mail slot. She had one foot out the door and was fighting with her seatbelt to get enough height to drop in her letters. If you are going to have to open your door and step 70% of the way out you may as well park and get a little exercise for your trouble.

I wouldn't have been as annoyed if the second car in line didn't decide that in front of the mailboxes was the appropriate place to sort the various letters she had to send. The woman behind the wheel would take four or five letters at a time, check them over and then push them into the mailbox before repeating the process with the next five letters. First off, even though there are three mailboxes at this location, there are only two categories to sort the letters: stamped or out of town. Also, considering I have seen the inside of a post office and it looks like they pretty much dump all the letters into one pile and sort them at that point, you could essentially drop your letters into any mailbox and it will eventually arrive at your desired destination. So not only was her sorting annoying, it was unnecessary. Secondly, it took me three or four handfuls of letters to realize despite the sorting she was dropping all these letters into the same mailbox, which meant she was sorting mail which didn't need to be sorted. (Considering all the letters were coming from her, she also should have known that before she even left the house.) If she was so concerned about making sure that all the letters had the correct amount of postage than she could and should have taken care of it while the woman in the first car was contorting herself to ensure she never had to actually step all the outside her vehicle and admit defeat.

I know complaining about a process which should only take 20 seconds taking over a minute and is still incredibly convenient is the definition of the phrase "first world problems." Honestly, I try not to do it so much and I'm constantly reminding myself to take a step back and put on the perspective that I've still got it really easy. But I've come to realize that no matter how few things I really have to complain about, I'm never going to suffer fools well and people who slow down what really should be an idiot-proof system are the ultimate fools. There are enough items in the world which break without any help, so the last thing I want it to be stuck behind is a person who seems intent on testing the limits of just how complicated they can make an otherwise straightforward machine. (For example: the people who insist on going through the self-checkout lane at the grocery store even though they have no idea how to scan things. I know it looks faster, but that only happens when you know what you are doing. Just go through the regular line and save us all the time.) It simply seems that making sure you will be ready to go when it is your turn is a much better use of the time spent in line and if you aren't ready, step out of the way of the people who are. As a society we may not be able to completely do away with standing in lines, but there is no reason for us to make it take any longer than it absolutely needs to.