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Queuing is a fact of life nowadays. Even if you only want a cup of tay and a sticky bun you have to line up for it. It’s the same in the shop, the post office and the chemist. We have become a nation of queuers.
A friend of mine who emigrated to London tells me that queuing is a way of life there and if you stand in the one spot for two minutes a queue of people will form behind you, just to see if you are waiting for something they should be waiting for.
Queues are frustrating places and as a public representative they can be painful places. Any queue I find myself standing in becomes a clinic, where I have to deal with everything from potholes to planning permissions. Standing at urinals is another occupational hazard for the local councillor, especially at matches.
Fellas lean over you as you try valiantly to answer the call of nature and proceed to discuss the ins and outs of the bend on their road that needs to be straightened. Meanwhile, your ability to complete what you started dries up and as your tormentor buttons himself having successfully emptied his blader he looks you up and down:
Having trouble with the auld waterworks Maurice? You’d want to get that seen to.
The greatest annoyance in any shop queue is the lotto hopeful. Just when she puts away the purse and you think she’s finished, the shopkeeper asks if she has 10c handy. The purse is pulled out again and after endless digging and rooting all she can find is a €2 coin. As she hands that over she says:
“Do you know what, give me a scratch card.”
“Which one do you want?”
“Oh I don’t know, I have no luck with any of them.”
At that stage I want to say:
Missus, if you have no luck with them why are you buyin’ the feckin things at all? Take your change and let us all get out of here.
But she hums and haws her way through the vast array of scratch cards from Winning Streak to Finian’s Rainbow and when she eventually makes her mind up she takes two of them, a decision that precipitates another dive into the purse and another full blown search for more change.
By the time you get to the counter you’ve forgotten what you want and, what’s more, you’ve lost the will to live.
Things are not much better in the council offices. I had occasion last week to go to the motor tax section to get the tractor taxed. I hadn’t bothered taxing it at Lisnapookybawna because it was never on the road, but Sergeant McKreedy stopped me during the festive season and only that it was Christmas he said he’d have thrown the book at me.
Anyway, I took myself into motor tax last Tuesday and was delighted to see that there were only three people in front of me. None of them were from my area so there would be no questions about housing grants, potholes or planning permission. Also, they don’t sell scratch cards in the motor tax office so there would be no delay once people had their business done.
But even though the queue was small, it moved at a snail’s pace. It wasn’t the people outside the counter causing the problem, but the man behind the glass partition. Mickey Rigney, a native of Honetyne now living in Clonmel and a hoor for news and gossip, has been in motor tax since Adam was a gorsoon. He interrogates everyone who approaches the counter and while the public cannot hear what the customer is saying, every word Mickey says is broadcast through a speaker in the glass partition.
The woman before me got a right grilling.
I see you’re from Fethard missus. There was a big funeral out there during the week – Oh she was a Sheeran – Didn’t her husband run away with a young wan from Teeranaspic – Oh, I see, different Sheerans entirely – And tell me, who’s goin’ to inherit Clonburry House, isn’t there 140 acres with it? – You don’t know – I heard it was the Clipper Ryans – What do they want with more land, givin’ them that house and land is like rubbin’ lard into a fat pig’s behind.
His commentary on the Sheerans, on Fethard and the Clipper Ryans was broadcast all over the office. At this point, a crowd had joined the queue and were getting an unsolicited social commentary on life in Fethard and environs from Mickey. By the time I got to the counter, the queue behind me was a mile log, but thankfully the bould Mr Rigney had gone on a well-earned tea-break.
There’s a lot to be said for doing all this stuff online. CL
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