Queued and ready
Up early; today we had to get in line to make sure we were among the chosen. With that, the culture of the queue.
In a shopping centre, with no intention of spending money. A world based on distraction, disorientation. Almost like a low-key casino, where the slot sonata is replaced with Muzak. Rock Muzak. Who else remembers the 80’s?
We were fashionably late. Others had already begun the trek; forward, always forward. Ignore the scenery, as enticing as it might be. A cookware store, with curved double-blade knives to chop parsley. Health foods, without any nutritional value inferred. A phone store (for those old enough to remember Bell, this was a Bell-store, but there was nary a rotary dial in view). Shoes, hanging like coats from overhead racks. Underthings, outlining the different price point endured by the genders.
And, of course, the queue. Starting at one end, without pattern, broad. Narrowed at the halfway point with actual barricades, and a silly chicane that brought us face to face with others at two points. A tree, fenced off. After ninety minutes, we halted before the man with the badge, who checked our faces for signs of duplicity before waving us on toward the wicket.
This line had nothing and everything to do with money. A sign to assure the ill-informed: “Nothing for sale”. A requirement of photo ID and reasoned answers. Inquisitive forms, needing to know if I had a fever, or egg allergy, or some other aberrant condition. Finally, the question: Why was I there?
Nothing existential; we were lined for our flu shot. Given the absence of pain, I either received a placebo, or the attendant was more practiced at subcutaneal injection than I. One good thing about public needles is that once you’ve received the payload, they can’t take it back. (Can they?)
