I recently drove by our local Dunkin Donuts. There were eleven cars in the drive thru. I imagine number eleven getting to the order window.
"I'll take an apple fritter, two chocolate glazed and a black coffee."
"Sir, we are out of fritters and chocolate glazed."
"Then give me a bear claw and two plain cake donuts."
"Sir, we are out of those too."
"Then, just the coffee."
"We are out of cups."
It is amazing how long Americans will wait in line to get some ephemeral food item. It's not like you have to stand in line for eight hours just to get a moldy potato and stale bread in the old Soviet Union. Folks willingly spend a quarter of their life sitting in drive-thrus; also standing outside stores or camped on the internet, waiting for that magic moment when some gewgaw or concert ticket is finally/possibly available. "Sid, look at this nice flat screen I got on Black Friday. I had to yank it out of the hands of a lady with a stroller."
While there are many opportunities where we willingly wait forever, (I stood in line two and a half hours to see the original Star Wars in '77) there are plenty of occasions where we are held hostage to long wait times.
First is the infamous DMV (Distressed Motorist Venue). For some muddled reason you actually have to go to a local DMV office. They apparently won't let you take care of business on-line. You get there early but still end up with a number in the high fifties. The powers that be have gone out of their way to make the chairs as uncomfortable as possible. Every other person ahead of you seems to have a registration issue that requires two supervisors to confer for inordinate amounts of time. After several hours you finally get to the window, only to be told you could have taken care of this on-line if you'd only known the super secret website URL.
You go to the post office to mail a package overseas. After standing in line for twenty minutes you finally reach the counter, only to be told that the forms you need to fill out are back where you came in. You fill out three custom forms, where you need to write a mini essay about the contents of the package. You get back to the counter after another twenty minutes. The clerk tells you the address is insufficient for international mail, but that's all you have. You give up, deciding that your friend in Europe really doesn't need what you had planned to send.
My wife and I are at an age where we spend more and more time in medical offices. The last trip to the eye doctor was typical. While the wait to see the doc was, for once, not overly long, the environment was not exactly great. Fellow seniors engaged in full throated talking on cell phones. "Well Beulah, the damn dog did have fleas!" The ubiquitous waiting room TV is blaring out advice on how to solve dry eye problems. The reading selection includes the following: Retinal Diseases in Adults, Tumors of the Eye and Advances in Cataract Surgery (I am not making this up). Trapped in old geezer hell.
The grocery store is infamous for long waits. If you get there early in the morning to pick up a couple of items, they only have one checkout open which is usually dedicated to 15 items or less. So you are there to get OJ and some eggs; however, there are two carts in front of you filled to the brim, to beat the rush. You get there late afternoon, and they have three lines open, but you get in the line where the lady in front has to write a check. It takes two minutes for her to find the checkbook in her large purse. Or the person in front is trying to use a debit card that is continually rejected, or the person in front forgot an item and the bagger is sent to find it, only to return unsuccessgul, minutes later. It's enough to consider using their home delivery service.
Welcome to phone tree hell. You spend thirty minutes and multiple calls maneuvering through disembodied computer voices; either the syrupy female voice or the "confident" male version. Finally you reach a live person, but they aren't in the right department, and when they transfer you, the phone goes dead. Alternately, the live person is in India, and through their broken English you realize that rather than really helping you, their main function is to sell you an upgraded service you don't need. Then there is some company's internet chat service, where the back and forth typed conversation takes ninety minutes, and at the end you are supposed to complete a survey on how great the whole frustrating experience has been. Oh for the days of brick and mortar stores and walk-up customer complaint departments.
If you live in a place where you have to commute long distances to work, then freeway grid lock can be a way of life. Better have plenty of water and a bunch of audio books to pass the time. However, for most folks, the mother of all wait times starts at the airline terminal. Long lines to check in. Long lines to go through TSA security. "Ma'am, a llama is not a recognized emotional support animal." or "Sir, that bag of eels in your carry on will be turned over the Fish and Wildlife." Then the flight is delayed for hours or cancelled altogether. Will the airline put you up in a local hotel overnight? Only if the airlines say the delay/cancellation is their fault, which happens about 5% of the time. "Sir, we are not responsible for a blizzard. God did that. Try to get some sleep in that comfy chair and here is a voucher for a cup of coffee." Tired of being treated like cattle? Maybe a long road trip would have been the better option.
Looking forward, when we get to the pearly gates, let's hope the wait won't be long. If it is, at least the view will be spectacular.