Philosophizing About the Line

After an illogical flight from San Jose to Panama "on my way" back to the States, I touched down at Dulles just before 1 am.  As we had started our descent, the captain's voice came over the loudspeaker to give that standard announcement of estimated time of arrival and local weather conditions.  Of course this was in Spanish and when I first heard the words "dos grados bajo cero [two degrees below zero]" I panicked for a split second until I realized that this was Celsius so it wasn't as bad as it sounded.  But wait a sec, that was still really cold compared to the hot and humid weather I was coming from, and then came the voice again, "Current temperature is 28 degrees."

28 degrees?  Are you kidding me?  I guess this was to be expected, but expecting something and then stepping into it are quite different things.

So it was back to reality in the States, starting with an announcement that I hadn't heard before, that the use of cell phones was prohibited until clearing immigration and customs.  Is this a new law that was enacted in the last month?  Apparently this has been in place for quite a long time, but weird that this was the first time I'd ever heard about it.

Then there was the line to get through immigration, another display of how human constructions, often with good intent, so easily go awry.  I'm referring to everything from the creation of the Department of Homeland Security [what a waste], to the older idea of immigration, to the yet older idea of the Line and philosophies on how to make it function most efficiently.  The basic and most fundamental rule of the Line is that the first person in the line is the next person to be served.  When a new person arrives to the line, there is no question about where that person's place is, after the last person.  By using only these two rules, one will find that there is no confusion and the system functions smoothly.

Humans, however, seem to have this penchant to "improve" simple systems that need no improvement, and "develop" places that would be better left alone.  I found myself directed to wait at the number 24 box while 10 people who had been behind me in line proceeded through numbers 21, 22 and 23.  There you go, the Line, another natural system ruined by human intervention.

Back to Hyattsville.  I realize that I made a disparaging remark about Hyattsville in one of my earlier blog posts so I thought I would give it a chance to redeem itself.  After all, they are developing.