I have been trying lately to sit down and spend a few hours, even though I would settle for minutes, to catch up on all my writing including making a blog post.

But as I have so often said life got in the way while I was making other plans.

This morning I was travelling to visit my Mum who is very old and sick to spend some time with her. The traffic as usual was conspiring against me.

I finally stopped at a service station just before arriving at Mum’s to get a drink and of course buy cigarettes (please disregard all my previous blog posts about giving up as none of them appear to have bedded themselves in as a permanent part of my life!)

I walked inside and realised for once that there was no line at the cash register and only one woman in front of me – who incidentally I had opened the door for and allowed to walk into the store in front of me (as I have said before – no good deed goes unpunished!).

She approached the counter and proceeded to check and then put back on, her cross lotto tickets for the last 100 years.  It suddenly dawned on me that I was in the scene from the video “This is Water” where it is not about being in the line, but being in a world that I realised doesn’t revolve around me.

BANG!  Thanks how long it takes to change your attitude to being in line.  Yes, I wanted to get my stuff and go and visit Mum.  Yes, it was annoying that she was putting all these cross lotto’s on when I was in the line behind her.  Yes, the line was growing behind me and I somehow felt responsible.  Yes, I did think about just walking out because after all I had been waiting for 3 minutes.  But, BANG!  I decided to not worry about it and enjoy the experience of waiting in line…..  I think I actually smiled.

Finally after much discussion about cross lotto, the very patient guy behind the counter said, ‘There you go love all fixed’ and handed her tickets to her.  The world is a wonderful place because instead of stepping away as I thought she was going to (I was in the leaning forward about to take a step position) she said, ‘Now, I just need to order a couple of coffees.’  The moan of the people who had lined up behind me, now about 8, was thunderous – two walked out.  I actually laughed out loud.

I have decided that I am going to pick the longest lines from now on.  I will have no expectation that I will be served, or enter, or be greeted in any time soon.  I will just enjoy the wait.

Does it really matter, no.  If you said yes, I say, really?

I think being better at waiting in line will make me a better man.