The Mysterious Practice of “Who’s last in line?”

I was at Kmart (I know, I shop there way too much) this past weekend, gazing forlornly at the lack of staff at the checkout counters—only one line was open—and watching the zombie consumers waiting for their turn. I wasn’t happy at the prospect of losing crucial minutes of my life while the easily distracted cashier waded through the queue slower than shi-at rolling uphill. But I conformed and took my place. Periodically the person at the customer service counter would shout “Next person on line IN ORDER step to the customer service desk.” This resulted in momentary mayhem, as the more anal variety of customer staunchly refused to move from their position, while the annoying customers jostled to steal the spot. The line undid and redid itself accordingly.

Suddenly a multitasking woman approached (she was juggling items in her hands, fishing her wallet out of her purse, and talking on her cell phone by using her shoulder to hold the phone to her ear. “What am I supposed to do?” she whined at the cashier. “Which line?” The cashier repeated that IN ORDER people could switch to the newly opened check out. “But nobody is moving!” she complained, all a flutter, in a self-important voice.

“You’re in Kmart,” I reminded her before shaking my head and moving up one place in line. As I watched the line slowly crawl forward, I was impressed by how, despite a few hiccups, it stayed in form. While my fellow Americans, and perhaps the Brits reading my blog, may take for granted that a line (or queue) is generally an organized formation of people who stand one right after the other in the order they arrived, there is a strange and chaotic alternative system that people use in Catalonia, Spain, where I lived for much of my adult life.

The system has no name that I’m aware of, but I like to call it ¿Quien es el ultimo? (Who’s last in line?). This is how it works: you walk into a store, bank, bakery, post office, doctor’s office, etc. Instead of a line, you see a shambles–people all over the place, some sitting, some standing, some sneaking a cigarette outside. You shout “Who’s last in line?” A few people answer at once and you determine who’s telling the truth. You then remember that you go after that person (I’m after the teenage girl with her buttcrack hanging out of her unreasonably tight pants, for example).

I learned about the system the hard way my first year living in Barcelona. I had gone to the post office to mail out chapters of my novel to some publishers (I was still optimistic back then). There I was with stacks of huge heavy envelopes, waiting my turn for over a half hour and antsy about getting back to work. Just as I was about to place the envelops down on the counter, an old lady jumped up and c-blocked me.

“Hey, it’s my turn,” I shouted in Spanish.

“No, I was next.” She insisted. “It’s just that I was sitting.”

“You snooze you lose,” I said. Well actually, I don’t think you can translate that into Spanish, but it was something along those lines.

“No. I was next. I was after her,” the woman said, pointing to the person who’d just finished in front of me. Baffled and about to go postal (no pun intended), I left in a rage and had to ask a local friend to explain the bewildering concept to me.

The system gets even more confusing when in a doctor’s office and you have to take a number as if at a deli counter. Instead of quien es el ultimo, you have to check your number and then ask who has the number before you. So basically you walk into a waiting room and shout “¿quien tiene el numero 36?” for example, while everyone digs in their pockets to find their crumpled number and someone finally shouts “yo!” (Ok, I’m after the barrel-like woman with purple hair.)

Problem with the practice: there’s a specific type of person who takes advantage of the system—defies it, lies, and usurps you every time: the old, rotund, Catalan woman. These elderly women are large, in charge, as wide as they are tall and don’t take crap from anyone. They are not fragile, vulnerable grannies who get their purses snatched on the street. They’re not frail—they can and will knock you on your ass while trying to get on or off a train and they’ll pretend to be the “ultima” even when they’re not.

So while I was annoyed to be waiting on line in Kmart, and even more annoyed at flutter woman and her stupid cell phone, I actually cracked a smile at the prospect of standing in an organized fashion, and not having to submit to the chaos and mysterious inner workings of the phenomenon quien es el ultimo.