Patience is a Virtue

Sometimes it’s easy to unwittingly step briskly on the path toward disaster. At other times it’s a more casual stroll. As with most unpleasant experiences, this potential disaster had its humorous side. Whether it was humorous, of course, depends on your state of mind at the time, and whether you had committed the error.
The lines at the Southwest Airlines ticket counter in Chicago, the other day, were so long it was hard to imagine the airline had enough planes in its fleet to handle all of these would-be passengers. Slowly we crept along, like cattle moving to slaughter; or skiers moving to the lift chairs, similar experiences for some.
An apparent supervisor was doing her best to direct people. Those with only luggage to check, go right. No, my right, your left. No luggage to check? Go left. No, my left, your right. And those who weren’t sure if they were even supposed to be at the airport, wait over there. A thankless and endless job. She managed a relatively cheerful smile throughout the chore while making drastic pleas for help on her walkie-talkie.
Help arrived in the form of a breathless young man who had the expression of a deer caught in the headlights. The supervisor, while dealing with irate passengers, directed the young man to rearrange the black coral belts that kept us in our lanes as we moved laboriously toward the frenzied people at the ticket counter. She gave him instructions without making eye contact. He looked at her as if she were speaking a language he was hearing for the first time. Eventually, she got to the end of her sentence. The guy was so confused he had ask her, again, what he was supposed to do.
Finally he got it and moved to action. Bobbing and weaving, ducking beneath the lines that held us all in check, the young fellow worked his way into the middle of the mess. His goal, I think, was to create two major streams feeding toward the ticket counters. He began retracting this strap and extending that one. He compartmentalized, expanded, eliminated and created with the speed of a man on a mission from god.
People stopped moving forward, turned left or right depending where he had established inlet or outlet. What had been only confusion now degenerated into chaos.
In less than three minutes this whirling dervish managed to bottle up the whole lot of us. It was soon apparent that no one could get to the ticket counters.
The supervisor, meanwhile, had kept her back to the action. She soon realized that the line was getting longer, not shorter as she had hoped. And what had been only a murmmer of conversation coming from the passengers, was now reaching a decibel level that might concern even OSHA. As the hapless young man created the last barrier he was confused beyond hope. He stood still, hands in his packets, looking hopefully in the direction of the supervisor.
Mob-rule began to take over. People nearest the connectors of the retracting barrier straps began unhooking them and move in the general direction of the ticket counters. Before long, passengers had reestablished straight lines and the maze created by the young fellow was a matter of jokes. Order emerged from chaos. To the supervisor’s credit, I noticed she was quietly explaining to the young man, this time using hand gestures and getting affirmative nods from him, how to establish a corral, not a maze.