From an early age, I was taught to share and, by default, to
wait in line for things. I learnt that there is order and rhyme and reason
for everything. Although I learnt this in my early years before I started school, much of this theory was embedded into my and other young kids brains from the first day of
grade one. I still have recurring nightmares of the sounds of my various school
teachers clapping their hands in (what I believe to be) a universal rhythm to
get the attention of the students. The process would involve the teacher clapping until all students
became quiet and could show compliance to silence by repeating the clap in
unison (without making any noise). Then the teacher would complain that the class was too noisy and they had a headache (yet they
chose a career as a primary school teacher…).
I remember threats of ‘playtime’ being taken away as punishment for
pushing in and not sharing or waiting my turn. As I got older, the punishment changed. It went
from playtime privileges being taken away, to writing one-hundred lines about
why the hundred lines had to be written, to after school detentions in high
school. As high school finished and my classmates and I were sent into the world as citizens full of wealth about how to share and display decorum, I think that our roles changed. Or maybe we just accepted that displaying decorum meant waiting until we are called before proceeding. (This behaviour seems to be accepted and rarely questioned). Of course, this acceptance would
never hamper the ability for anyone to invent some story as to why our excuse for
not wanting to wait is better than the next person’s and why we should really
not have to wait or should be given queue jumping rights.
Despite this culture of waiting in line and strong disciplinary
action being taken if one pushes in, it seems as though the majority of
citizens cannot bear the thought of waiting in a line for more than thirty
seconds.
All you have to do is look at anyone who gets sent to the
help desk at an airport because of their boarding pass being rejected. It is
amazing how they will grumble make fools of themselves and they yell and scream
and throw their luggage about as they are forced to return to the help desk to
find out that the reason for their return has been to secure them a coveted
seat in the business class cabin, rather than in economy, as the discount price
they paid allowed. Of course, no apology
is presented to the ground staff, or any of the other passengers who witnessed
their outbreak if stupidity. They then march to the front of the queue and throw their new boarding pass at the ground staff and they proceed down the aerobridge in a hoity-toity fashion, as they are now an upstanding citizen due to their newly (but perhaps not duly) acquired status as a business class passenger.
This entire ‘mambo jumbo’ and ‘politics of pushing in’ that I
had so perfectly mastered went out of the door when I moved to Zambia. On one particular day, I went to the bank and
waited 45 minutes in the 30-deep queue of people to have my turn at the ATM,
only to find out that people were holding places in the line for their friends
who were nowhere in sight. I could feel the strong African Sun beating gently on my fair skin, and I was in great need of some water, though my bottle was in the car and I dare not move in fear of losing my place in the line. Finally, at the front of the queue, I was getting ready to have my turn, when
three people turned up from nowhere and proceeded to use the machine. No one complained, sighed or even acknowledged this misdemenour. Except for me. Of course
four more people turned up after them, as did half a dozen more. None of them
had been in the line. At this point, I realised what was wrong.(Other than the fact that I wanted to get money out of the machine, my skin was burning and my mouth was dry). I was being too polite – standing in line and waiting my turn. All those years I spent learning
patience and waiting in line for my turn suddenly seemed like a distant memory.
When the next person came along, I
decided it was time. When no one was using the machine, I barged, like a bull
on a mission, to that machine to gain some coveted time with the wall. It worked.
It felt good and no one complained or said a word. Life went on as usual.
In that experience, I had succeeded in unlearning everything I
had drilled into me about waiting my turn. If all of my teachers could see me
now, I am sure they would cringe and vigorously be clapping their hands in every eight-beat rhythm they know, trying to
get my attention and being aghast that I was ignoring both their clapping and
the laws and politics of queue jumping that they had once so nicely taught me.
