Lines and Tigers and Bares

The true test of society is the line at the gas station. Or the lanes heading toward a merge point on the highway. Or maybe even the lines at the grocery store. Like a real-life game of prisoner, these lines tell us much about ourselves and about our fellow humans. Why is it, for example, that there is no reward for being polite? Altruism has no place in line, as anyone who has spent any time in a queue quickly learns. If you let one person get in front of you, twelve people will follow suit. If you let someone pass through the line on their way to someplace else, that will be taken as a sign that you have relinquished your spot or, even worse, started a secondary line in back of the primary lines.

It's a dog-eat-dog world in the line, even if dogs don't really eat other dogs. At least not as far as I know. Then again, wishes will probably never be horses, and I'm pretty sure that any bird that wants a worm gets one, regardless of how late they slept in. This is the problem with most aphorisms; they really don't make much sense. Modern aphorisms, like "Anxiety is interest paid on trouble before it is due," are a little better, but as soon as you run across one of them, you're likely to bump into "a stitch in time saves nine." In this disposable society, few people even know what a stitch is.

Unless it's a stitch in the side, something all of us get. Interestingly, the word "stitch" has its roots in the German word "stichel" which means prick. The kind you get when someone jabs a needle into your hand. Or the kind you might get if you were standing in a lion. You could also be standing in Lyons, the restaurant (at least here in California), but you would be seated after a while, which is the sensible way to eat.

So now there is the possibility that you could be naked in a California restaurant, or bare in Lyons, but this still does not resolve the question of the tiger, a task that is undoubtedly beyond the capability of this writer. However, I do promise to give the matter further thought. Perhaps I'll ask Buster. He's not from around here; he's from Tige. Or his dog is, I think. They're over there, in line.