On queue...

[original post: Nov.01.2006]

I sit here on what's left of Halloween night wondering what happened to my childhood. What happened to little Jerry Gardner? He must have gotten lost on his way home from school.

It wasn't until I got into my car and was on my way to work today that I finally realized that it was Halloween. And the realization was a slow one with an abrupt ending, sort of like realizing that you're due for an oil change. Shit, it's Halloween....... eh....

I really don't dislike Halloween, but I do feel that it's built up so much by society that I can't muster enthusiasm to find a costume (which is a marathon in itself), stand in line (which I'll talk about later), pay $59.99 to look like SpongeBob, and then have to compete in a night-long Facebook profile photo contest (credit to Mr. Anthony Soufrine). Plus, I don't really like costumes. I'll absolutely dress up in a theatrical sense, but I just don't do costumes. There's too much pressure. Cutting fabric, glue guns, JoAnn's fabric store, not for me.

And yet I remember vividly the excitement of Halloween when I was younger. I have many smells that are associated with the holiday, most notably the smell of burning wood as October 31st always seems to be the first day of autumn that people start using their fireplaces. Halloween was a holiday where you could be anything you wanted, and possibly a little freaked and excited, and yet you always had that mask to cleverly hide the angst and adventure you were feeling. It was a marvelous time. And of course a gang of 12-year-olds trolling the neighborhood is always fun. Don't even talk to me about TP'ing.

And so, the wonder of Halloween is essentially obsolete for me now. Am I sad? Not so much. Sure I can't be a 12-year-old again painting the town red with my gang of friends in my old neighborhood, draining the community of its Snickers and Three Musketeers on our final Halloween year right before we start to seem a little awkward going door-to-door, only to retreat to Chase's house to watch a nonsensical amount of cheap '70s horror flicks and cable television (something quite foreign to me at the time). Sure that's gone.

But when I was 12-years-old, I couldn't have people over whenever I wanted, or attend an impromptu party at someone's house for absolutely no reason, or decide like I did on Saturday that I wasn't going to eat lunch and instead I was going to spoil my appetite and eat Pirate's Booty (stop laughing, Michael). Why? Because I can.

I suppose it is a trade-off. A piece of the past for a piece of the future.

Which brings me to the second part of this LiveJournal posting.

-----

I have absolutely no transition here, so if you're waiting for me to link the Halloween entry with this one, which is about my observations on queues, hence the title, think again. There is no transition, so take an abrupt 180 because I just did.

-----

I was at Trader Joe's yesterday, buying lunch. I'm actually there a couple of times a week. It's very close to my office and I've decided that I want to eat things that differ from ham sandwiches, clam chowder and yogurt, the main staples of our cafeteria at the M.I.N.D. Institute. Sidebar: The M.I.N.D. Institute is where I work. It's a neurodevelopmental research clinic in Sacramento.

So there I am, standing in line, clutching my sushi, potato salad, and strawberry and wheatgrass smoothie. Oh by the way, in case you didn't know, I'm pregnant.

I'm in line, just sort of thinking about this that and the other, like one does. Thinking about why my car is dematerializing, realizing that I'll be out of town for the Nov. 7 elections, wondering why the stamp from Sophia's never seems to wash off my damn hand.

Suddenly, my inner musings are interrupted. I can best describe it as watching your favorite sitcom to have the emergency broadcast system flash on. I am suddenly struck by the realization that the line has not moved in 7 minutes. I shift the items in my hands to try and look a bit less awkward.

Immediately, tenth grade Jerry kicks into gear. Well, I'm sure there's a perfectly logical explanation for why this line has not moved, relax. What do you expect to do about it anyway? A few more minutes pass and the line crawls on. The woman in front of me is only purchasing 9 items, she should be done in a minute. Not the case.

She hands some sort of official-looking coupon to the cashier after the scan of each item. With each coupon, or whatever, the cashier has to consult a manual and copy down some sort of alpha-numeric code onto the coupon, scan it, and then progress with the remaining items. Eight minutes go by. The tenth grader chimes in again: Be patient for the good of humanity, Jerry. It's probably government-issued food stamps, and she looks like she's been through enough. Probably has five mouths to feed at home hence the bulk staple items. Consider others.

Then, contemporary Jerry kicks in: If our government gave a shit about these people, they would have designed a food stamp that was easier to use and didn't require their excess display at the front of the check-out line like some sort of marionette against an unintentional pity backdrop. I mean, I hate it when my card is a little scratched and it takes me 23 seconds to authorize credit, decline the pin request, sign my name electronically which always looks funky, and wait for the banks to communicate. Have you ever been just sorta standing there for like 30 seconds... waiting...

Do we really exist during these periods on queue? What happens to us? I always wonder what the others in line are thinking about. Maybe the queue is the premier philosophical venue and we're all too stupid to realize it. After all, it's one of the rare times when we're forced to stop everything and take in our surroundings. But then again, maybe it's just a queue.

Buy sushi somewhere else, not at Trader Joe's.