Lines? We Don't Need No Stinkin' Lines!

A line, as in a queue, is called la fila in Italian. I don't know why they have a word for it because Italians don't do lines. They do blobs. Maybe they came up with a word for it so they could describe what they WEREN'T doing. As in: Non facciamo la fila: perchè mai dovremmo? In the US, if people are waiting for a ticket window to open in order to buy tickets to a movie, a line will form as more and more people arrive and wait. In Italy, as people arrive they will all hover in the general vicinity of the window, and as soon as it opens there is a simultaneous migration to the window and an attempt to prove that two bodies can indeed occupy the same space at the same time.

There is never a line. Don't look for one and don't stand behind a person expecting to shuffle forward in an orderly fashion behind them. If you see something that looks like a line, don't be fooled. It's a practical joke being played. A line won't happen. If you aren't moving forward, you're going backwards. Bars. Kebab stands. Gelaterie. Ski lifts. Anywhere there is more than one person trying to get somewhere. Look out for number one, that's you. Italians in foreign airports are fantastic because they apply the same principle that apply at home and can't understand the hostility they encounter from everyone else dutifully waiting their turn.

This problem of the line is exacerbated in any situation where there is no "official" form of control. For instance, on Tuesday, I was sat in the waiting room waiting to see the immigration official. The process is to greet anyone already waiting and inquire about who was the last to arrive. That person identified, you will follow them and thus, a "line" forms. Invariably though, there are those for whom this just will not do and they attempt to circumvent the wait through a variety of tactics, odious and obnoxious. They lurk near the office door and sidle in when it opens for the next person. They say they just have a quick question and rush in, only to take twenty minutes. They latch on to whoever happens to actually be next, like a parasite, and follow them in, and just like in nature the host organism is left hollow and whithered while the parasite thrives. Or with a shrug of the shoulders they simply cut and bull their way in. Any of these, despite the squalling and protestations of the abused. Understandably, nobody likes when their turn is taken, but they all know that next time it will be they who take the mickey out of a waiting-room full of chumps so the protestations are never too insistent. More an acknowledgement of a game well played than distaste for the behavior.

None of this is good news for an American indoctrinated in the absoluteness of the line and intoxicated by its orderly efficiency. And the Germans practically lose their minds over it. When I see a group of German tourists in town I follow them around waiting for them to start a line in a shop or bar somewhere and then I watch the hilarity ensue.

The post-office and banks have solved the blob problem by installing ticket systems, like a US DMV office. Take a ticket, when your number is called, approach. It's a cultural adjustment and understandably will take time, so people still hover near the teller windows, genetically predisposed to trying to cut the queue. Or they feign needing a pen or something totally unrelated and the attention of the teller gained they launch into their business. But if your ticket doesn't have the right number, both the teller and the customer whose turn it actually is have the right, and the pleasure, of hollering at you. The fun starts when your teller can't help you (maybe their printer is out of paper and they haven't bothered to get more paper) and they tell you just to go to the next window over as soon as it's free. So you do. Except the next person with the ticket for that window has also arrived which means at a minimum there are now four people involved which is more than enough for a complete impasse.

But in the end it all works itself out. We get by just fine the way it is. I eventually picked up my documents. I eventually mailed them from the post office. Only two steps left and I'll have my new permesso. Figo!