Unit Four
Waiting in Line
The British queue up and the Americans wait in line, except for New Yorkers, who wait on line. No one seems to know the reason for this local
idiom.
It is
something to
ponder
while waiting in/on line.
Another thing to ponder: It is estimated that Americans spednd up to five years of their lives in that tedious,
weary
but unavoidable process known as waiting. Studies show that otherwise rational people act irrationally when forced to stand in line or wait in crowds, even becoming violent.
Queues are a
grim
reality of city life.
While there seems to be no
consensus
onthe city's worst line, the ones mentioned most often in talks here and there were lunchtime lines at banks and post offices and, among younger people, movie lines and college-registration lines.
"Bank lines," said Mark Sloane, an investor. "No matter what time of day you bank, the number of tellers is inadequate to the number of
patrons
. Even when the bank is open you see long lines infront of the money machines outside."
"Supermarkets," said Ed Frantz, a
graphic
artist, who once abandoned a full shopping cart in the middle of a long checkout line. It was not a political act. "The line was filled with
coupon clippers
and check writers," he recalled. "And suddenly I had to walk away. Food no longer mattered."
In any line the fundamental rule is first come, first served, or what dsocial scientists call "distributive justice."
Exceptions may be made, say, in fancy restaurants where the headwaiters have their favorites, but, in general, the rule
prevails
.
If
misery
loves company, so do sports fans.
Dr. Leon Mann documented this several years ago when, as a Harvard professor, he studied the long overnight queues for tickets to ball games in his native Australia.
"Outside the stadium something of a
carnival
atmosphere prevails," he wrote in The American Journal of
Sociology
. "The devotees sing,
sip
warm drinks, play cards and
huddle
together."
Like the teams they had come to watch, the fans in line took timeouts. Some worked in shifts, with certain members leaving to take naps or eat meals, while others saved their places in line. Some staked claims in line with items of personal property such as sleeping bags and folding chairs. "During the early hours of waiting," Dr. Mann noted, "the queues often consisted of one part people to two parts
inanimate
objects."
Nobody has ever seriously studied Helen Quinn's Saturday morning line for
Metropolitan
Opera tickets, but perhaps someone should --Miss Quinn is not an official at the Met.
For 15 years standees at the opera
责任编辑:zhaotingting
