Have you ever witnessed or been involved in an argument in a store over someone cutting in line or some other infraction?

I let them cut in front. There are more important things to worry about. I won’t let that get my blood pressure up.

I usually make comments to them, questioning their parentage and upbringing, but I’m not a cop caller.

My buddy John actually had the cops called on him when he cut in line to view Ronald Reagan’s body in Washington DC, when his rotting corpse was displayed under the Rotunda.

I have witnessed this. I was at the San Diego County Fair in Del Mar. Lines can be quite long. It was loud, and suggestive of racism. I didn’t like being there.

I’ll usually point out that the end of the line is “back there”. I’ve never seen it get contentious, that I recall.

No, and while I am very friendly and often allow others to go ahead of me I would speak up.
Today I told a woman in a restaurant to please be quiet. She was SO LOUD and obnoxious and it was obvious it was for attentions sake. Well she got it from me. lol

I very clearly said ” Would you PLEASE be quiet, you are OBNOXIOUSLY annoying!”
Several other tables chimed in and she left with her 2 kids and very quiet and embarrassed companion. haha
I was a hairs breadth away from getting up and very calmly walking over to her table and dumping my ice water on her head. lol

No, but I did have a funny thing happen at a VIP invitational sale only. There was a line clear around the parking lot when I arrived. I saw a person standing next to a portable scanner and asked if that was the line for the sale.

He said no, that’s the line for the free phone. The line for the sale is next to the building (with about 20 people in it). The boys had already run to the end of the other line, so I went after them and told them it was the wrong line. When other people heard me, more than half the line started over to the sale line. Luckily, I was ahead of most of them. They were all in the wrong line.

My daughter and I were at magic mountain and some gangster types were getting off the ride and then cutting back in the front of the line. My daughter told on them and got them kicked out of the park. We were sort of scared walking to our car that night.

Yes, when I was in line to get tickets for The Avengers.

Note to self: I have got to invite @Coloma to dinner some day.

This sort of thing happens in Asia a lot. In fact, it seems to be the norm in Asia, to the extent that “lines” even form for anything. One place where queues are more or less enforced are at the “official” (read “government official”) checkpoints, such as security screenings at airport terminals, passport and customs booths and checkers, etc. (Queues do not form at the terminal gate, however. When they start calling the plane to be boarded “by row” everyone gets up in a mass and charges – more or less – for the boarding gate.)

Even at the “official checkpoints” the queues can break down. On my last trip back from India I was standing in line at the velvet rope near the hand luggage screener, with an armed guard enforcing who can leave the line to proceed to the smaller line at the counter where we partially empty some luggage into trays, remove belts and phones and the like. So I got the go-ahead, as did the man next in line behind me. He immediately shouldered me aside and moved to the counter in front of me, as brazen as you please. I was not in a rush, have learned to expect this sort of casual rudeness in India, and was just sort of bemused by it all. However, the man who had been in front of me all the time, an Indian himself, had seen what had happened, and rounded on the interloper. He gave him such a (polite and quiet, but mad as hell) dressing-down that I thought I was watching a first grade teacher hissing at a fidgety student in an assembly. He scathingly informed the man that I had been in his place, that he had completely disrespected me, and that I might now tell stories of rude Indians for the rest of my life because of this. And only the three of us could hear what was going on. This was not a loud and embarrassing scene. But it was loud enough and embarrassing enough to the line-cutter! He tucked his tail between his legs, made up a story about how he thought I was going to some other (non-existent) line, etc. etc., begged my forgiveness and walked away, practically in tears. My benefactor apologized to me that I had to witness such rudeness and such a correction and even offered to let me go ahead of him. I thanked him, but declined his offer, of course.

So I’m here to tell the story of the super-polite Indian who would like all other Indians to be proper ambassadors of the place – and to take his example as my own. You’d better not cut in line behind me now, either.

@CWOTUS My pleasure to dine with you. :-)

I had a great experience in Taiwan when my friend and I were standing on a corner in the insanity of Taipei city, looking bewildered as we tried to find somewhere to eat. A very nice man saw our look of bewilderment and we managed to express our desire for food. He took us by the hand in a chain, deftly wove us in and out of the packed sidewalks and took us to a dumpling house where he cut to the front of the line, ordered us a meal and found us a table. Very sweet!

Mmmmmm… dumplings!