Thursday, September 22, 2011

Queue Too

I was recently standing in a queue, with Dr K, in the Cribbs Causeway branch of Marks and Spencer. They seemed to be a bit short on staff, so the queue was moving slowly.

I was quite bored. I get bored easily, and you know how I hate queuing. But there wasn't much that could be done about it, so I endured. The couple behind us, however were not so resigned to their fate, choosing instead to complain loudly and angrily to each other.

'It's ridiculous,' said the man (who had a silly teddy-boy haircut so I'm going to call him Ted). 'This is supposed to be Bristol's flagship store and they can't even find enough staff to man the tills. And this bloody idiot is serving people really slowly. Look at him. I think he might be retarded or something.'

This went on for several minutes, and I developed a deep rooted and sincere dislike of Ted. So I decided to amuse myself at his expense.

'I really enjoy queuing,' I informed Dr K, loudly. 'It's just so much fun.'

It all went quiet behind me. I could feel Ted's eyes burning into my back.

'I mean,' I continued, 'queuing is so much better than just standing around aimlessly. It's like themed standing. And you get stuff at the end of it. How cool is that?'

'It's okay,' agreed Dr K. 'But standing in the shower is even more fun.'

She had a good point.

Ted wasn't having any of my nonsense. He resumed his bellyaching with renewed vigour and a bit more volume.

'I can't stand it when shops treat their customers like cattle,' he groused. 'Someone needs to tell them that this is completely unacceptable...'

He was obviously still staring at me with white hot fury, as I could feel the back of my jacket smouldering.

'Remind me,' I said to Dr K, 'to thank the chap at the till for the excellent queuing opportunity. It's certainly the nicest queue I've stood in today.'

This continued for a few minutes more, until we reached the front of the queue and a new till was opened.

As we left I managed to get a really good look at Ted, who was glaring at me with open hatred. It's curious how people that look like dicks often are actually dicks as well.

No comments: