The other day I saw a meme of a small kid waiting in line standing on the area delineated on the floor while the adults were scattered all over. It read: "The importance of attending kindergarten." I'm afraid the problem goes beyond schooling. Most people I see waiting in lines must have attended K, and yet they can't help being "misplaced", "dislocated."

We can also call it our inability to accept order and to respect others' space. At some point, people at store and other public institutions give up trying to put order in the lines. It must be tiresome to have to remind grownups that they have to keep some distance, respect the order in which people get in line and respect the space, especially now, with all the health issues involved.

I took these images at a local shiping and receiving company. I was trying to pick up some medicines that were sent to my mother-in-law. It always takes longer because one has to deal with those who never look around to see where they should stand when they enter. They go straight to a teller, asuming their time is more valuable and hoping noone notices or complains.

Then, we have those who may keep their rightful position in the line but are unable to wait for their turn. So, they start breathing on your neck while you are still finishing your transaction.

I was hoping this pandemic would teach us some lessons about keeping and respecting spaces, but the death rate has been too low to intimidate our reckless spirits.

If you add to that some bad organization in certain places, like the bank I had to go to after this, then you have the perfect formula for organzied chaos. In banks, we tend to be more "obedient" and that makes the small spaces impractical in times like these.

I think they exagerated here, so there was little room for many customers at a time, making some people wait outside the bank under the sun (and it has been horribly hot these days).

Once inside, if you have to see a representative to, say, change your ATM card, then you have to sit on these sets of chairs that have been made available and change seats forward/around as people are being helped.

I noticed that they had taped some do-not-sit signs on the end seats leaving the one in the middle free. Ironically, most people were sitting on the do-not-sit seats. I guess, at some point people at the bank realized they could have more people seated that way, but they were too lazy to re-label the seats. It helps that we are so used of doing exactly the opposite of what signs tell us to do.

I also realized that some of the "right" seats were broken. So, I guess after the first couple of customers avoided the broken seat and sat on the do-not-sit areas, the rest just followed suit.

On top of that, I still had to deal with the occasional coleado, people who cuts in the line because they know someone in the nank and the very security guard brings them, talks to the representative and make their arrangements.

After one hour and a half, I got my new ATM card. I was unable to use it right there to get some cash because all the ATMs were off. Well, there were two on but they were having some issues and were just as good as the other ones.

When I thought I had had enough for the day, I venture to take a bus (which I have not done very often in almost three years; I walk my way around the city every day). What is the point of social distance ina bank when you can control distance in a bus?

There were almost as many people standing as they were sitting. Most of them were wearing home-made cloth masks and quite a few were not wearing masks at all. Again, it is a great thing that the death rate by covid19 are pretty low, otherwise we would have decimated ourselves by now.

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