Standing in line at Shafer dining hall

So I was at the Shafer dining hall one morning during the breakfast shift. During these times, there is always a fair amount of people there. If you are not familiar with the way in which lines can back up while at the dining hall, you are lucky. If you are not familiar with the dining hall at all, you are even more fortunate. In any case, this particular morning the lines seemed to be longer than usual.

I took to my business, scoping the area for a potential station that would possibly accommodate my hunger. I spotted the eggs, potatoes and muffin area. Not interested in the potatoes or the muffins, I scoped the pots of eggs. This station seemed to have the longest line. Seeing that there were in fact two pots of eggs, I walked up to the second pot and got my share of unborn chickens.

The thing is, I was given the death stare from some people in line. What? You would think that someone who only wants one thing from a station would not have to stand in line just to get that one thing. While other people were busy getting muffins, eggs, and potatoes, I went ahead and got what I wanted.

That really got me thinking about the whole line business in the first place. Standing in line is possibly the most common social practice in America. It makes me realize what a hierarchical system we live in. Are we so hierarchically obsessed that we stand in line, one behind the other, silently at every public function and social gathering?

I remember back during my grade school years when they made it such a big deal to stand in line. If you cut out even for a little while, the moderators or the teacher would jump you. Now that I look back on it, I realize it was a form of brainwashing. They ingrained in us the desperate need to stand in line whenever more than four people were standing around waiting for something.

We as Westerners – Americans – like our space. We have a big country. We have big cars, houses and highways. For us to stand in an organized line everywhere we go, it proves to me how far we go to keep others from invading our large personal space. Looking at other cultures from around the world, they have much smaller personal space than us.

I remember my time in Egypt during winter break last year. The concept of the line was nonexistent there. Everyone just crowded in with one another and got what they needed…eventually. It was really exciting because some people would push and shove their way to the front. There was also a lot of yelling. There are, however, some places in Europe where they have the same no-line policy, as well as the smaller personal space. The most familiar place I can think of off the top of my head is Spain.

Here we follow the line ethic so religiously it’s almost a cult. If we were to implement the same crowd manners as these countries, it would make interaction between American citizens more informal – and more fun. Imagine running into someone literally, you have not seen in a while. In a time where you are lucky to be on a speaking relationship with your neighbor, this kind of minute social interaction with strangers could be a good thing to help relations with others.

The polite and prudent way of dealing with strangers by standing in lines only sets us farther apart as citizens (figuratively and literally). It is a small detail, true, but the little things in life you notice often exemplify a much larger meaning. I have found that if you delve deeper into the mentality to stand in line, the reason why it is a brainwashing tactic becomes clearer as well – large crowds are always dangerous to authority.

This has been proven in mobs, riots, or just in normal social gatherings look at the security during the Super Bowl. Local and federal government officials get really uneasy whenever a large number of people are seen together. Large numbers of people can get out of hand pretty easily as well, especially if they want some eggs and potatoes for breakfast.

So, by telling us to stand in line whenever we are with a pretty decent size of strangers, or with people we are familiar with but have gathered for reasons outside social interaction, our teachers and officials have successfully made us into line zombies. Before you and a group of other strangers are standing around waiting for something, resist the urge to get into a line. I know it is a hard thing to resist, but you can get help.