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Picking the Wrong Queue: Making peace with where we are
For much of my life, getting the fastest checkout queue has been a secret compulsion at the end of most supermarket shops. As I approach the checkouts, I scan to see if everybody else missed one that is free. Of course that’s a rare event, so after a fleeting sense of disappointment, so subtle it can easily go unnoticed, I look for the one with the shortest queue. I also conduct lightning-fast surveillance to tally up the content of peoples’ trolleys and baskets, rapidly assessing which line will likely move fastest.
Having picked my queue, despite my best endeavors, it is not uncommon that the one next to me moves faster. You know, the one where the mother and two children had unloaded a bulging shopping trolley. The size of their shop is stupendous, yet they are moving through the checkout at remarkable speed, while the shopper in front of me produces an item for which my checkout guy is unable to find the price. He has to get a colleague to do a price check. And then, just as I think the shop in front of me is through, the shopper realizes they forgot something and, muttering an indistinct apology, head back into the aisles to get it. My eyes dart to the other checkouts again, looking for an opening. I know that is now futile, there’s really nothing I can do, and I may as well wait my turn. But I still feel twitchy.
