DOES THAT HURT OR CAN YOU JUST FEEL IT: SHEETZ FOR BRAINS

The other day I almost got my ass kicked by some redneck who didn't understand the concept of a line. You see there is this Sheetz, near my house and it is crazy busy. There is always a line and I actually feel bad for the cashiers because it seems they never get a break.
For the longest time there wasn't any sort of queue line directing the cattle to their slaughter of caffeine and nicotine. Some people, understood the concept of "One line for 4 registers." We all wait in one line and go to the next available cashier. It's that simple - just like a bank - but without the roped off area clearly marking where one would form a line. Maybe my friends and neighbors at Sheetz understand the concept but without a queue line they were all kind of lost. I'm not sure what the problem was but the management of the store obviously saw one and attempted to solve it.
When the queue line appeared it seemed to confuse the sheeple more than they were without it. The first day a man stood at the entrance to the line - with no one queued in front of him. I was completely baffled. Maybe he felt that walking 5 feet just to be the first person in line was too much trouble. Maybe he assumed that those already at the register were going to be quicker than they were. He was called to the register to pay and the line that had formed behind him shuffled forward. I thought maybe the five people in front of me would file into the queue because now we were blocking the entrance and every 14.5 seconds another customer had to push their way into the store. No, that is not what occurred. On the contrary, the bright young lady behind our first confused sack of meat stopped, read the sign that says "LINE FORMS HERE" and made the conscious decision to stand... RIGHT THERE.... where the sign said the line forms - at the ENTRANCE to the line. I mean if the sign says LINE FORMS HERE it must FORM HERE regardless of that whole roped off little line - looking thing BEYOND THE SIGN.
In the weeks after, I found myself laughing out loud at the sheer stupidity of the people I encounter at this convenience store every day. One day someone was waiting in line in reverse - and others shuffled silently behind them. Another afternoon there were two lines. The one that the smart people formed in the queue and the one the others formed on their own. Each line was feeding two registers instead of one feeding four.
This particular afternoon found me surpised to see everyone had formed a line. A simple line, in the correct way, facing the proper direction. The 8 people in my vicinity were at least smart enough to understand the concept of a line and the way Sheetz wished for customers to form one. It was amazing, and I sadly felt proud for my fellow man. 11 weeks and they finally got it.
Then, interrupting my silent celebration of the astounding intelligence of society in general, comes a man with beef jerky, a bag of Doritos, and and mouth full of chew bigger than a baseball pitcher's, stepping up to the front of the line as if he didn't see the long line that he should have been standing in. Now, I had been watching him for the entire previous transaction. I had already summed him up as the only person in the building that was too dim to understand the concept of waiting your turn in line. I started moving toward the register before the transaction before me was complete - staking my claim as the one destined to be next in line. This piece of shit was not cutting in front of me; not on the day when everyone else and their uncle was getting it right. The cashier turned toward me, looked me in the eye and said "I'll take the next person in line please." This douchebag proceeds to unload his gourmet dinner for one from his arms and looks to the cashier who is staring at me. She was being a total bitch in her ignorance of his presence, staring at me as I slide next to him and have my items promptly scanned. Einstein, who had obviously been shot down hard by a 19 year old girl at Sheetz, stepped back and said "Where does the line form?"
I matter-of-factually reply, "Where the sign says it does?"
He might have been deaf and dumb because as he assumes his place as the ass-end of the line he asks, "Whagew say?"
So I turned, looked him in the eye and answered, "I said where ... the ... sign ... says ... it ... does. I don't think he appreciated my dramatic pause. Perhaps he mistook it for condescension or misread it as patronizing, regardless he was definitely pissed. The cashier who laughed out loud at him might have made things worse but by the time I finished my transaction and turned, Sir-Thinks-Alot had been stewing for over 20 seconds and his face had turned beet red. This guy wanted to kick my ass in the worst way. On my way out the door I thought he might just be crazy enough to start something so I waited in the car for a minute so he would see that that i wasn't scared shitless of him and was actually waiting for him because I was the crazy one and he shouldn't have messed with me. He was probably freaking out the entire time he was in line because I hear I can be pretty intimidating with my bald head and go-t.
Since then I had to find a way for the idiots to not seem like idiots so I could stand in what they thought was a line without getting myself so frustrated that I was finding myself on the brink of a fist fight. My solution: pretend that they are all too smart than the average American and becasue of that they take the time to rebel from the oppression of the man. No one will tell these free-thinking people where to form a line. They form lines where they say they do.

What's Going On Here

Years ago, a typical drive to work or back home from, would usually include 3-4 “Road Rage Induced Outbursts.” I was driving through the downtown portion of the city of Pittsburgh
everyday and I just assumed having only 3-4 RRIO’s per trip was par for the course. If you
have lived and driven in the City of Pittsburgh, then take a moment while the shiver that just shot up your spine subsides. Those of you that have never lived or driven in the City of Pittsburgh then please take a moment to appreciate how good God is to you. Have we all taken our respective moments? Good. Now let’s talk driving in the City of Pittsburgh Pennsylvania.

I want you to imagine that you’re driving in your vehicle, and that vehicle has just driven through a shrink ray beam. With me? Good. That shrink ray did exactly what it set out to do and now you are the size of an ant. Yes, the car is the size of an ant car. You and your car are shrunk to the size of an ant in an ant car. Yes. Ok. Now, you (and your ant car) have been picked up by someone’s giant fingers and plopped right in the middle of a bowl of spaghetti. Come on, we all have imaginations, use yours. Small “ant” you, in your little “ant” car, driving in a world of spaghetti noodle roads. That’s what navigating Pittsburgh streets is like. “Oh no am I going in the right direction or did I exit the noodle I was on and get onto another noodle that is going one way in the wrong direction? I can’t tell if I’m on the same noodle or not. Oh shit whatever noodle we’re on at the moment is running out and I have to change noodles. Which one do I take? Left, Right? Diagonal to the top left, diagonal to the top right,
or maybe I should go around the loop to the right but end up going to the left noodle anyway?”
I shit you not, that is exactly what it is like.

Pittsburgh Streets are like a giant spaghetti bowl of death and most people driving near you have no fucking clue as to where the hell they are going. Yes it does sound overly dramatic but it is true. The worst people on the road in Pittsburgh are the one’s that don’t have any idea about where they are going. You can’t really blame them because it is Spaghetti Death Bowl 3000 out there. Nontheless, these are the one’s that fuck shit up for the rest of us. The one’s that get the bright idea to make a left turn while they are 3 lanes over in the right turning lane. The one’s that will pull out in front of you while there is no one behind you and go 10 miles an hour for 1 block and then turn left because they should have made a left instead of making a right and pulling out in front of you. The one’s that are too busy reading street signs like they’re a novel trying to figure out where the hell they are supposed to go. These are the bastards that get rear ended all the time.


There are quite a few obstacles in the way too - as if Grandma Polishinski driving to the Walgreen’s isn’t obstacle enough. You’ve got to accept that at anytime a gaping hole the size of Rhode Island could open up in the road just in front
of you, devouring your front passenger tire in one gulp. You have to prepare yourself for the surprise 5 mile gauntlet of construction zone orange and reflective white colored plastic drums. Do not be surprised to see no one working at all during that 5 mile one lane hell crawl either - Filling in a pot hole the size of Rhode Island takes a long time folks especially when they’re paying you by the hour. So I figure that between all the idiots, Rhode Island Potholes, and construction zones in this city that 3-4 RRIO’s for a single trip to work really wasn’t that bad.

I had this friend that would always tell me the truth no matter what. I was driving with her once and in the middle of our trip she says “You need to relax when you drive or you’re going to have a heart attack.” That was the truth, and I needed to hear it. Apparently it wasn’t so much the frequency of the outbursts because she had to admit that driving in Pittsburgh sucks, it was really the intensity of the outbursts that concerned her. How truly pissed off Grandma Polishinski could make me in under 3 and 1/2 seconds “terrified her,” I believe, her exact words.

I started thinking of a moment from South Park: Bigger, Longer, Uncut. Terrance and Philip are singing the classic “Uncle Fucker” and during one of the bridges the two of them cross the street and a Canadian Mountie approaches singin “What’s going on here?” What’s going on here saved me from my heart attack because any time someone pissed me off whilst driving I say that line outloud and I can do nothing but laugh, and maybe sing a verse of Uncle fucker. Trey Parker and Matt Stone are good for your well being, at least, that is, if you’re a driver in Pittsburgh. Now shut your fucking face Uncle Fucker.