Ask Lemmy

Life line.

credit agencies.
listen and navigate useless automated prompt then wait an hour for some crony to inform you that you have no immediate control of your credit due to a system error on their end.

On a 4.5 hour drive home, I got caught in a full stop on I-55 for 4.5 hours, thus doubling my drive time. I guess there were fatalities and a great deal of vehicular carnage, so I didn't complain about the wait. I knew plenty others were having a far worse day than me.

Back in like 2007? I started a line in front of a best buy to wait for the wii console release it was about a 3 day wait. I was the only one there for the first day, but some other people showed the next day. We had a pretty good time.

Waited around 5 hours for a photo on the iron throne from Game of Thrones. This was between seasons 6 and 7 so before the show was completely assassinated. I called my sister from a town 90 miles away and she got a train over straight away, took over 2 hours but I was still in line by the time she showed up lol. Looking back it was definitely not worth it but I have a cool pic of me dabbing on the throne so it's something at least.

There was a tech event here and you could try a VR headset inside a general gaming space, so I had to wait 3h outside in the scorching sun just to play 5 minutes of VR to know if I could buy a headset without worrying if it would make me sick.

Queue for first covid shot at 6 Flags in Northern Virginia. It was a car queue, but there must have been 100 cars in front of me.

I got dragged to a midnight opening of a clockwork orange store opening by my mum when I was a pre teen. We were there from midnight to something like 3/4 in the morning. We then left and went home and went to bed, then went back after daylight occurred and my mum had a look around and realised that she doesn't actually like designer brands anyway. So I got to be a cranky sleep deprived kid with severe ADHD and autistic traits for a 5 minute (at most) look around a shop.

I had to wait in line for 3-4 hours for airport security, for a 40 minute flight.
It might not have been the longest line, but it sure felt like it. It was the first time we used that airport, and every time the line passed a corner I was sure that we would be reaching the end. But no, just more of the line. Winding and winding through the corridors, up and down the escalators. At one point I was almost convinced we were all going in circles :)

Retirement. Queued up for 32 years and still unable to get to it.

I once queued for four hours for Wimbledon tickets. The tennis was good, and it was great to say that I saw some cool matches that year, but any feeling of joy I had was diminished by my aching feet and generally being pissed off about having to queue for something I could watch on TV.

I also queued for about two hours once to get out of Wembley Stadium, because of a tube delay. Anyone that's walked along Wembley Way before will know that getting out (if you need to get to the station) is hell. Nowadays, I park nearby instead, or rent a bike and cycle near a station that isn't fucked.

I know that as a Brit queueing should be in my blood, but I just can't be fucked with any queue that's longer than 4-5 people.

I thought waiting a line with 30 to 40 people ahead was a nightmare, until I saw the Brits queuing for a mile to see the deceased queen. That day I realized no one can beat the Brits at queuing.

7.5 hours for a covid test during the first outbreak in my city, they tried to tell me they were closed and not seeing more people, that was the only time I Karen's my way into getting my way

7 hours at the DMV only to get rejected even after checking documents when I arrived because I needed another one.

Never went back to that hellhole office and found another one that took 15 minutes.

Probably the Empire State Building. It was about 3 or 4 hours, but instead of one line, it was a series of lines. It was set up so that you think you're done with the line only to be at the end of another line.

Another line I can remember was for a food truck. It was the 4th of July and my city has a food truck fest every year. During the pandemic, there were fewer trucks than normal. Ended up in a line that was like 2 and a half hours only for the food truck to stop sales about 7 or 8 people in front of me. I was hangry after that.

As far as a non physical line, I waited 2 years to get a CPAP. I almost gave up on getting one when it finally happened.

The line to the grave

Two Christmases ago, I was renting a car. Right after Southwest cancelled approximately a million flights. So there were almost no rental cars. You basically waited in line until one was returned and then the next person would wait, etc. I waited 8 hours for a car. Walkable cities anyone?

Earlier last year I waited an hour and a half for a restaurant that was supposed to be the best Mexican food in that area, plus one of the very few that served molcajete. Turns out by 'best' they meant subpar, tough, and bland. And they didn't even actually have molcajete. I was pissed over the time wasted I spent standing outside in the sun.

I am no longer interested in amusement parks unless I have some kind of fast pass (or it's a slow enough day to not need one). If the line takes 2-3 hours, you only get to ride 3-4 rides in an 8 hour period, and even then only if you don't eat (or eat in line and don't have to wait in line for the food).

These days, the longest line I'm willing to wait in is like 15 minutes.

3.5h in line in a very cold Venice to see a Dalí exhibit

8 hours in line to apply for a new identity card.

All day at the emergency room when my ex burned the skin off his palm. This was the very early 1990s and apparently they triaged: Gunshot wounds, then anyone who had insurance and could pay, then everyone else. So it became a much more complicated medical event than it needed to be, and he was in pain the whole time.

Haunted house. 8 hours.

Service Canada. It wasn’t a physically super long line, but the shit people were there for took hours.

3 hours in the middle of the night in a crowded mall.

It was Cataclysm's release night. People were packed in, you had groups of them with laptops huddling together to play while we waited. Eventually the GameStop employees came out and started doing a trivia contest with some WoW-themed tat as rewards.

I was almost 5 hours in line to get Jim Lee's autograph at Barcelona's comic con.