The Queue (Part Deux)
How it feels like the country just can't be arsed anymore.
I recently joined another queue. Not the adrenaline-addled virtual queue, trying to obtain the unobtainable (see a previous post), but a physical one. It was in the post office located in my local WH Smiths, perhaps soon to be one of the many casualties to be closed down.
This particular branch is long and narrow. It’s a bit like queueing for a Disney ride, but without the thrilling pay off. Once you’re through the doors, there’s a ruffle of hope as you venture down the long aisle. Then, like a giant iron filing to a magnet, you’re attached to the end of a huge queue. As the aisle is so narrow, so that you’re wedged between Gardener’s Weekly on one side and Write Your Own Will on the other, it’s virtually impossible to escape, unless you wish to become on intimate terms with the people who have joined behind you.
I’m convinced that, if Kafka had paid a visit to this outlet, he would have scrapped ‘The Trial’ and written ‘The Post Office’ instead. You see, as you join the queue, people turn and look at you sympathetically in a ‘You know not what you have done,’ way. You stare back in a, ‘I just thought I’d pop in quickly,’ way.
The day I joined (now sounding like a cult), I took my place in a queue of twenty plus people and stared at five empty ‘tills.’ The only one that was occupied was the Foreign Exchange one. Perhaps this was a conscious choice, as this is the only till to be closed off and behind a screen, presumably to save the guy behind it from the wrath of irate customers. He can only be subjected to an impatient drumming of fingers instead.
The thing is, we all stared passively at the five empty till points, clutching our parcels without so much as an expletive. Perhaps they were pumping out some soporific substance, stamp glue or something, through the vents. I’m a ‘huffer’ and even my huffs were extremely muted, out of respect for the other Stoics in the queue. It was as if we kept staring at the till points long enough, we could perhaps manifest staff to appear. Part of me wondered whether if I went over and peered across the counter, I would find them hiding on the floor. In a few seconds of blind optimism, I remembered the self-service points, but a No Entry sign stared back mockingly from each screen. Of course.
Behind the sole employee manning the till, my eyes land upon a Certificate of Achievement on the wall. I’m unsure what particular achievement is being marked, but feel it might lean to an ability to work with no sense of urgency and to remain utterly unphased by the ever expanding queue, now comprising a hefty percentage of the town. I also spy a ‘Losses Escalation’ notice. Whatever it is, I’m not surprised: our losses are escalating rapidly standing here where the space time continuum has frozen.
I gaze at the bank of diaries for the new year. One says ‘Good Vibes.’ Metallic gold script on a vivid green background. I am feeling vibes, but they are not good. I contemplate asking someone to save my place while I go and buy a Crunchie bar and a magazine. Maybe I could read an improving article in The Economist and learn what ‘fiscal drag’ actually is and that it bears no relation to lucrative garments. However, I’m so worn down by the torpor, I can’t be bothered.
Ahead of me, a teenage boy strikes up conversation with the mother ahead of him and engages with her impossibly cute baby, who at least has the benefit of lounging in a sheepskin-lined stroller. More people join the queue and glances of commiseration are exchanged before they too turn glassy-eyed. It’s a coping mechanism.
My eye is drawn to a woman in the queue who looks like she would probably have someone in her employ to do the queuing for her, unless it was for a five star opening. She carries a large Selfridges bag which I’m secretly hoping contains boxes of Findus Crispy pancakes, a litre of Dr. Pepper and some balled up sweaty gym kit, but it probably houses something precious wrapped in multiple layers of tissue paper.
Some people survive to make it to the front and proceed to undertake lengthy and mysterious transactions at the till. Perhaps they are splurging their life story for fear of imminently expiring given a lifetime has passed in this line. Time slows down further the nearer I get and Macbeth’s, ‘I am in blood stepped so far, that should I wade no more, returning were as tedious as go o’er,’ pops into my head.
I half expected a mild rebellion to break during this whole thing. Someone will start spouting any minute, I thought. There will be a call for the manager, an interrogation on this parlous state of affairs. But no. We obediently stood there and occasionally shuffled over the period of forty or so minutes that felt like another geological age. This was just how it was. Mainly crap. I know we’re good at queues, but really?
The same happened queueing for the dog’s Prozac (yes, you read that correctly) at Boots. Every time I go (once a month), it’s as if I’ve presented a new and indecipherable prescription. Confusion reigns. I’ve stood in that queue for so long, I can give you a comprehensive lowdown on all the self-testing kits you can now buy.
Whether it’s trains or queues or queues for trains, I feel that our prevailing mood is, ‘It’s all a bit shit, really,’ and, to an extent, we’ve become used to that as the status quo. A slow attrition on our expectations has worn us down and frankly, we can’t be arsed, nor can anyone responsible for anything either. Post offices will be closing down as people would prefer not to remortgage their homes to afford the stamps and, in any event, post might only arrive one day out of 210 or, most likely it will have been shoved through a random letterbox around the corner. Delivered, yes, but to the correct house? That takes effort.