You Can Pick Your Friends And You Can Pick Your Nose But You Can't Pick The Right Line

Tonight I went to Walmart, which is one of my least favorite things to do in the best of times. Six days before Christmas doesn't fall into that category. The store really wasn't so bad---wasn't too terribly crowded really--considering--and I was only there for a couple of items. Things were going decently UNTIL: I got in line. I stink at picking lines; I just stink at it. All lines being equal, or seemingly not too unequal, I picked one. Line number 14. After maybe five minutes, I noticed that I hadn't moved at all, while the people who had just been on either side of me in the other lines were forward by several people. Twenty minutes passed and I inched forward. First of all, there had only been maybe eight parties in front of me (several of these included four or more people) and except for the girl directly in front of me, none of them seemed to have abnormally large transactions. So there was nothing to indicate that it would be a slow line. I don't know if there was something wrong with the checker or if each person who came up had some unique problem; I don't know what the issue was, but I stood in line for probably 45 minutes. Meanwhile, dozens of people passed through the lines on each side of me. It was lovely to see; it just gave my heart cheer.

And then the final insult: the girl in front of me with her possibly 100 items finally got everything rung up. She was apparently purchasing things for her uncle or for the group of them, using her uncle's card. She did the whole card thing, but wait!! It was the wrong PIN! Nothing worked. The machine wouldn't let her do credit. She called her uncle or someone and tried a different PIN. No luck. Meanwhile, as it often does, time passed. My children grew older. We got a new president. Finally, it was decided that she would have to put her cart and all its goodies aside and run home, get a different card, and come back. MY TURN!!! Already? So quickly? I took about five minutes or less and was out the door, quick as a flash. I shook the dust of Walmart from my feet and went merrily on my way.

But I'm left wondering if there's some mathematical system or possibly some magic I can come up with for helping me pick better lines.