Waiting in line to be served.

The kinds of things I think about while waiting in line to be served. . . are eating shit? (Okay, they're not all gonna be slam dunks.)

The other day, I went to a museum that was serving complimentary tea on one of its floors.

At the serving table, there were no other items being offered — just a simple cup of tea. You’d approach, the person working there would ask if you’d like a cup of tea. If you said yes, she’d ask if you wanted lemon or sugar, then fix the cup for you. There wasn’t much more to it than that.

First, my partner approached. The server asked if she wanted a cup of tea, she said yes, told the server how she took it, and then accepted the cup.

I was next. She asked me if I wanted a cup of tea, I said yes, told her how I took it, she made it, and I accepted the cup.

As I moved to walk away, I heard the server addressing a gentleman waiting in line behind me.

“Would you like a cup of tea as well?”

He said yes. You’d think this was a complete nonissue, but I was stuck on her question.

Why “as well”?

Sure, this man may have wanted a cup of tea, but he was clearly not with my party in any way. Adding “as well” seemed odd. To me, saying “as well” almost acts as a unifier, linking whatever order she just took previously with her current question.

For the man to fully make sense of “as well,” and answer accurately, he would have needed to be paying attention to the server as she talked to ME, wouldn't he? Only then could he agree or not. Otherwise, the “as well” means nothing, doesn’t it? And why would he have been expected to be listening to someone else ask for tea?

It’s not enough to just make an assumption and reduce her question to, “Would you like a cup of tea?” by itself. What if, just before the man behind me stepped up to the table, the server had explained to me that they had run out of tea and had replaced the jug with a furniture polish called “Tee,” and I had accepted it? As unlikely as that may have been, if it HAD been the case, her then asking the man, “Would you like a cup of Tee as well?” would seem to absolve her of any necessity to explain herself. But if she had left out "as well" and asked him only, “Would you like a cup of Tee?”, she'd still be on the hook to clarify.

If I were that man, I would not have felt comfortable answering her question. It’s invasive and presumptive to imply that I should have been randomly listening to whatever back-and-forth order was happening in line before me. Yet by NOT listening, she is effectively asking me to make a choice without all of the information.

What’s the solution? If I clarified by repeating her question, “Would I like a cup of tea?” — worded just like that — it could’ve been assumed I just didn’t hear her, not that I was asking for more information. There, the logic is a bit murkier: was my clarifying question, without the use of “as well,” completely eschewing her use of the words, or were they still implied?

We just don’t know — and in today’s fast-paced, breakneck, reckless world, we can’t afford to have our nation’s children take the risk.

***

Another time, I was waiting in line to order food from a taco food truck. I noticed that while the truck had a very extensive menu, no prices were listed anywhere. There were none on the display board, none on the paper pamphlets, and while their website listed all of the same menu items, it didn’t list prices, either.

The only reference to a dollar amount anywhere was under the listing of quesadillas: it said there was a $2 charge to add chicken or beef to the standard cheese quesadilla. Simple enough.

But. . . oddly, that didn’t make sense to me. I’m happy to be informed that there’s an extra charge to add meat to a dish, but how is that useful when you don’t know the price of the dish in the first place? How does one incorporate the new knowledge of this addition into the overall financial picture when there’s no information about what it’s being added to? What if the cheese quesadilla is already $100,000?

I may be on the fence about ordering an addition of meat, and the extra charge could push me over — or not. What if the quesadilla by itself is $9, and I have only $10 to spend?

A few prices missing here or there can be forgiven, but this taco truck had no prices on anything — food, drinks. . . even its souvenir t-shirt and cap were without a known cost. What’s more, the truck was parked alongside other vendors at a food market, where prices were all over the map between restaurants. There was absolutely NO reference point to infer how much my meal would cost. I don’t even eat meat!

Of course, because nobody else notices, cares, or takes action about anything, dozens of people were cycling through the long line throughout the day. They presumably paid whatever they were charged without question (like drones), and I was one of them. ✍︎