Jay Lake: Writer

Refusing to wait in line means that your experiences will only be, at best, those for which demand never exceeds supply, or at worst, those from which other knowledgeable customers have decided to flee.

Many years ago, I had an epiphany about waiting. I was wandering Kansas City during the Nebula Awards weekend, looking for a place for our group to eat dinner. All the restaurants we first approached had lines, and then, after checking out 6-8 places, we finally found one with no line, and everyone was eager to go.

But it occurred to me — it’s a weekend night — and every restaurant in town has a wait except this one? Isn’t the universe trying to tell us something? Like — the locals have judged this place subpar? Do we really want to sacrifice decent food on the altar of no waiting? (Add to that the fact that if we’d simply gotten in the line for the first restaurant of our choice, we’d have spent less time waiting for our table than we did walking around Kansas City.)

Ever since then, when approaching businesses, I haven’t been concerned that there was a line — I’ve worried if there wasn’t one.

I’ve never been a patient person. However, I used to not mind waiting (in line or otherwise) for things that were definitely going to occur. Waiting for something that probably or might occur has always been a downfall of mine.

These days, my own health issues make waiting in line impossible. My chronic pain condition keeps me from voluntarily getting in a line where I will have to stand for more than 10-15 minutes. I’ve pushed myself a few times when I really thought I wanted to do something. The memory of the pain has gotten me to redefine what it is that I really want to do. NOTHING is worth the physical definite pain that I will be in if I have to stand for more than 15 minutes. Not the Second Coming, and not even the opportunity to ravage Gerard Butler.

I hate waiting in line and besides I have health issues which make prolonged standing problematic, so I do whatever I have to do to avoid waiting. For example, I try to go grocery shopping during low traffic times, never go to see a movie on the opening day or weekend and usually go into afternoon showings, which are less full, etc… For theatres or extremely crowded museum exhibitions, I try to preorder tickets. Sometimes, waiting in line cannot be helped, e.g. with public transport (though I hate the fact that bus shelters have so few benches these days, just to keep away the homeless. Some people simply cannot stand for a long time) or airport security lines.

A restaurant would have to be truly exceptional for me to wait for a table – I certainly wouldn’t do so for a pizza – and it would have to be multiple Michelin star level for me to wait at a place that doesn’t even have a bar. Though perpetually sold out restaurants seem to be a particular US and sometimes UK thing. I don’t recall ever having had to wait standing in line at any restaurant in Germany (that is, restaurants in East Germany were often notorious for long waiting times, even if the actual restaurant was half empty) or the Netherlands or Belgium or France for that matter and I’ve visited restaurants in those countries that blow any food I’ve ever had in the US out of the water. I have no idea why the waiting issue is so bad in the US and UK, though I suspect that there is more of a tendency to pounce on a popular restaurant, just because it’s popular. Or maybe the long waits are the result of artificial scarcity to make the restaurant seem more popular than it is.