Ten Queues That Ought Not to Have Been Cut

Ranked by the gravity of the insertion

A line is a small agreement between strangers about the order of things. To cut one is to break that agreement in full view of everyone bound by it. The Collection ranks ten such breakages, with particular attention to the case in which there was nothing whatsoever to be gained.

No. 1 · The Standing Entry The line of one at the Cumberland Farms register, Concord, New Hampshire, the 9th of November, 2001. (See the record.) The purest line-cut on record. There was no one ahead. There was no time to be saved and nothing to be gained. He cut it anyway. The Collection considers this not a lesser offence for its smallness but a greater one for its purposelessness.
The queue at a wake.There is no hurry here. That is the entire point of it.
The security line, cut by a man with a backpack and questions.He will need the bin. He has not begun to consider the bin.
The line for the single open restroom.A line held together by mutual, urgent honesty.
The boarding queue, cut by a passenger wearing "Group 1" as a personality.The plane will not leave without Group 4. It never has.
The deli line, and everyone in it holding number 47.They are calling 31. See Bulletin No. 001.
The line at the DMV, cut by no one, because no one believed it could be improved.A rare queue at perfect peace with its own futility.
The queue for the lifeboat.Ranked here chiefly as a reminder of where the bar is.
The conga line, cut into without rhythm.A structural and a musical failure at once.
The line you are in right now, mentally, reliving a previous line.The Collection knows this line well. It lives there.

Bulletin No. 007 will rank ten odors by what they disclose about the person emitting them. The first is already on file.