The Queue Theory
The queue theory has absolutely nothing to do with profound mathematical or scientific theories, so please rest assured.
“Don’t jump the queue”, “Queue here”, “Get into the queue”. These are just some of the more familiar expressions we see or hear almost everyday. Queues are everywhere, ranging from the bus-stops, MRT stations, hawker centres to the supermarkets.
Indeed, as far as Singapore is concerned, queueing is an activity in itself. It is not difficult to understand why life is composed of an endless queue of queues.
In the 1970s, there was the infamous national campaign which aimed at teaching people how to form orderly queues at bus-stops. People then did not know how to queue. They had to be taught so. But there has been no turning back since. From young, we have been conditioned by circumstances to queue so as to attain certain goals and advised to queue early.
Even before a baby is born, he is made to queue for his turn to come into this world. This is especially true in the case of twins of triplets. Everyone wants to be the eldest child, but there can only be one. Even after both siblings have been born, they will have to continue to queue for their mother’s attention. If both babies cry at the same time, the probability of either one baby receiving the intended attention is halved. However, if one particular baby joins in the queue and waits for his turn, crying only after the wailing of his other sibling has subsided, then he gets the attention he wants.
Brace yourselves and be prepared. The queueing game has just begun.
I remember the time when I was in primary school when all of us had to queue up after recess time to have an opportunity to squat next to the drain in the quadrangle. To do what one may ask? To queue up to brush one’s teeth. Imagine being the last in the queue and finding heaps of Colgate or Darlie in the drains and having to clear them up. But on another occasion, while queueing up to be reprimanded by the form teacher, I was glad to be the last in the queue. After all, having scolded more than twenty of my other classmates, she would not have much energy left to scold me.
The pre-university days marked the queueing for the supposed belle of the junior college. No doubt I was also of the budding Romeos in the queue, but a pity I never got to her. Thinking back, I should have jumped the queue then but I guess I never did so, for fear of a fractured nose.
Perhaps the best place to see queues and personally be involved in queues on a daily basis is during National Service. Mealtimes do not come just like that. The opportunity cost incurred is having to queue with a tray in one hand and a mug in the other, only to be greeted with the hostility of the cooks who never failed to intimidate us. After all, we still needed to depend on their food servings for survival.
The epitome of the queueing game reveals itself when it is finally rime to take a shower after a hard day’s training. But alas, you still need to queue! Perhaps the only consolation in this case is getting to admire the wet, naked physiques presented in front of you in full, uncensored view.
University life again gives full play to the notion of queueing and seems to relish this fact by encouraging multi-queueing. This was most evident from the queueing for the signing up of tutorial slots. All the queueing took place on the same day and at the same time across all faculties, resulting in massive human traffic jams along corridors and outside departments.
Before settling down, one again has to queue at the Registry of Marriage. This phenomenon reached its climax in 1997 when countless number of couples-to-be joined in the queue just to take advantage of not having their five thousand dollars deposit confiscated if they could produce their marriage certificate before a certain dateline.
The queueing does not just stop here. After a child is born, the vicious cycle starts again. Anxious parents queue overnight to secure a place in the childcare centres and nursery schools for their children. And when the property market was bullish, people willingly queued in droves just to be among the first few to purchase a condominium.
Sad to say, even when a person has vanished from the surface of the earth, he has to queue for a final resting place for his weary bones.
When his soul departs from his body, he has to queue to enter the gates of heaven or hell. In the unfortunate event that he enters hell, he is destined to queue again, this time at the Forgotten Bridge. Those of you familiar with Chinese mythology will then know that after he has gotten his queue number, the legendary Meng Po will grant him a bowl of water which will help him forget his past. Only after he has drunk the water is he eligible to start queueing for his reincarnation.
So, do you know the morale of the story?
Queueing is here to stay. For those of you who don’t like queueing, then the moon is the only place for you because there will be nobody to queue with you on the moon. But before you can fly off to the moon, there is still one thing you must do. You still need to start queueing at the station to book your ticket to the moon.
Hence, the three golden rules of my queue theory which you must know to succeed in life are as follows:-
Rule 1 : Start queueing
Rule 2 : Queue early (to avoid disappointment)
Rule 3 : Return to Rule 1
