> "Well I'm sorry," Crotchedy A said, obviously not, and the rest of what she said was too muffled for me to hear. Indignant B gave some look of exasperated disbelief, scanned the line to see what other reactions she would find there, and reluctantly backed into line. As luck would have it, the next available register was the same one -- you know how McDonald's takes two or three orders in a row before the food arrives for the first? -- and Indignant B sidled over to the register and, after ordering her food, started chewing out Crotchedy A again. I didn't hear it all, but snippets of the conversation were, from Indignant B, "Don't pretend you don't know what's going on," and, from Crotchedy A, "Well why don't they line up here?"

Seems to me that Crotchedy A is one of those people who would rather be beaten to death by an angry mob than admitting her errors by taking the corrective action of walking to the end of the line or at least, as she'd already made her order, apologizing to Indignant B and the rest of the line, and maybe put on a slight blush.

I'm having trouble imagining that she cut in on purpose, because that would be asking for trouble, and most people don't ask for trouble, because it's... troublesome. People tend to avoid trouble. I'm much more inclined to think that, once she discovered that she'd made an error, she didn't have the humility to back down.

Personally, I'm one of those who hate cutter-ins. I don't like unfair treatment, and try my best not to treat others unfairly, because I hate it so much myself. I don't know, maybe I feel like this just because I'm much too timid to be unfair, cut in and not care about what others think myself, and thus feel jealous of the people who are able to pull it off. But I like to think I'm a righteous person. :-)


-Trav"would've apologized"holt.