IF YOU WEREN’T MY BEST FRIEND I’D POP YOUR HEAD RIGHT OFF YOUR NECK: Like Alan Sepinwall, I usually agree with Larry David (though, like Alan, I part company with him when he steals flowers from the roadside memorial). Last night’s episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm is a good example – Larry (a) took a stand on taking excessive time at store counters while others are waiting in line; (b) advocated for an airline-ticketing-type line at retail stores (a move already adopted, with positive results, by Whole Foods in Manhattan and Bristol Farms in San Francisco); and asserted an objection to paying an employee for his bathroom time (lawyers, the six-minute relief of your bladder is not worth $50 to anybody but you).
The first one, in particular, bugs me. I’ve thought about lines a lot in my life – some of my earliest memories are of standing in line with my parents in Brezhnev-era Moscow – and I think the cardinal rule is this: One should never approach the register without a plan. I have never understood how a person could stand in a long line at Starbucks or Panda Express (note, if you will, the “Express” in the title there) or the BART turnstile and not have used the time spent waiting to figure out what he or she wants and how to get it. And it’s no excuse that the line wasn’t all that long – if a line is too short to give you enough time to read the menu, then it’s short enough that you won’t lose much time by standing aside while you figure out what to get. Sure, there are times when a person legitimately needs to ask “what’s bubble tea?” or to hatch a plan B when the Orange Chicken is four minutes from coming out of the kitchen or to deal with a de-magnetized train ticket, but lack of preparation is inexcusable.
By the way, Super Dave Osborne is awesome.
No comments:
Post a Comment