Long queues....

Getting my passport
All day
...and late the next morning

I'd hope to think that's all been fixed now
But that was Seattle 1980
I'm not counting the drive from Portland OR
 
Hockey tickets in the good old days.

A couple of hours.

Also we had to get our car licenses renewed every year by a certain date. Now it's on our birthday.

My boss would send me out to get his license and I would have to stand in line.

That was easier than working. The license issuer was his friend so no problems if the form wasn't right. Probably lodge brothers. Lodges were big back then.
 

Most recent was meeting my sister and niece for lunch at a Chick-fil-A.

I hate it when it takes me longer to spend my money than it did to earn it, especially for a chicken sandwich.

Chick-Fil-A_with_huge_line.__Photo_Bob_Weatherston_t500x246.jpg
 
Oooh no...scrub round that... I just remembered the longest queue I ever waited in was 5 hours, and that was to get my NIE (Número de identidad de extranjero. )..in Spain when we first bought a house there. There were literally hundreds of people in the queue and even tho' we were told by our agents to get there at 6am ready for the opening at 9..there was already loads of people in the queue front of us when we arrived..and it was already VERY HOT!!!

I have a photo somewhere
 
This was the queue behind me , we were at the front of the L shaped queue and then all the way around the building at the back of the queue probably 2,000 people ..before 9am... this was about 18 years ago..The Spanish do nothing in a hurry, they closed the office at 1pm, and hundreds of people were turned away to have to queue again another day... fortunately we had Spanish agents and they knew how to get us in fast without being turned away!!

It's a different sytem these days, but even so the Spanish red tape is horrendous and everything takes a long time to get organised

15508.jpg
 
Ah, just remembered a queue of sorts
Decades ago now

wrote about it

Yuletide

Shopping...'tis the season


My lady, in yule mode, cranks out knitted and crocheted slippers for everyone on the same limb of the family tree. Sometimes a full blown afghan or two come to being.
They’ve been great, money saving gifts.
I, for the most part, every year, swear off buying anybody anything…it’s a humbug….then, some invisible ‘Christmas Present’ angel from hades baps me on the head around 7:30 pm, Christmas eve, and I grab a bat and my ol’ football helmet and venture thru the malls.

There have been times that I’ve had an epiphany and made the grandkids things, things of wood, forts, chests, ‘things they’ll treasure’ (my elfin mind tells me). So, for 2-3 weeks before that blessed day, every evening after work, I’d be seen in my shop, sawing, joining, planing, staining, finishing, smashing my elfin thumbs, cursing, swearing, waving my elfin arms……yeah, epiphanies….everybody should have one a them %@#&*$ epiphanies

Other times, years ago, my bride and I would find ourselves waiting for stores to open at 4 am.
It couldn’t be helped.
The glisten in her eyes from anticipation of early morning adventures swayed me to wake in the dead of night on black Friday eve, tiptoe past slumbering chickens, and sit in the mall parking lot, staring at the line of crazed humanity already encircling the electronics store like it was Jericho.
One time she joined the horde, unsuccessfully coaxing me to follow.


There I sat, flashlight and crossword in hand, hair askew, bedbeard looking like I was in a crosswind…..stomach chatting with me.
Two minutes to 4, I rubbed the fog off the side window.
The crazies were jostling for position.
I lost sight of the wife somewhere around the corner of the building.
I slap on my fishing cap and begrudgingly leave the refuge of the Buick.
The doors open.
The guy with the keys gets carried away with the mob. Only thing you can see of him is his flailing arms.
I stroll in with the first 50 shoppers that will get the TV special, getting a glimpse of the wife swimming past, heading to the TV dept….only the specials were all up front. The guy with the keys and foot prints on his shirt, points me the way.
Half hour later, here she comes, TV in cart.
I, TV in trunk, am on the 2nd crossword.
We’re not done…there’s a mere 27 other stores that have free snow globes, free coffee, and free donuts…….the frenzy has only begun.
So we secure her TVs, and make our way upstream, pointing to the trunk as we stroll back inside, making sure the parking lot thieves can know where at least two of the 50 TVs can still be had.
Two hours later, with globes clutched by jittering caffeine induced hands, the furrowed brows on my powdered sugar countenance lets the wife know I’m a couple clicks past jolly…and we go home….blessed home…..
 
Eight hours in Charles DeGaulle airport to receive a useless voucher from Air France for another flight. Then there was four more hours standing in line the next morning to find out that it was useless.

Before that, it was more than three hours standing in the broiling sun to get to ride on Space Mountain at Disney World. Years and years ago of course. I was younger and dumber then.
 
I won't stand in line for food. I went through the Second World War when there were scarcities and ration books.

Somehow we got along without sugar and meat. Grow and raise your own was the motto
 

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