I Wouldn't Stand In That Line For $650 Million

I don't like standing in line.  For anything.

When saying "no" to standing in line for tickets to a show or event, I've been known to exclaim "I wouldn't stand in that line if it was Jesus himself performing live in concert at the Hard Rock Cafe."  That's why, when visiting Vegas, I'll wind up at a magic show featuring a third-rate prestidigitator named "Bean the Wienie" instead of third row center at Blue Man Group.

Now I have a new disclaimer when it comes to lining up for anything:

"I wouldn't stand in that long line for $650 million."

Unlike the Jesus remark, this one is verifiably true.

A couple of weeks ago, Mega Millions lottery fever overtook the country as people queued up for a crack at winning nearly three-quarters of a billion dollars.  There were reports of lines at 7-Elevens winding around the block like it was a premiere of "Harry Potter and the Vanishing Puberty."  Just as always happens when a Walmart opens at 2 a.m. for "doorbuster sales" on Black Friday, fights broke out and people forgot how to behave.  And I don't blame anyone for a single punch thrown.

Standing in line brings back too many bad memories for most people, beginning with the requirements that you had to stay in line when traveling the halls of your kindergarten.  That trauma was increased exponentially when the demonic teacher required everyone to hold hands when heading to the cafeteria or library and you happened to be in line next to a girl (yuck!).

Later in school I remember standing in line to have my arm permanently scarred by an inoculation against smallpox (a disease which causes permanent scarring), another terrifying childhood memory involving a line.

Then you have the shared recurring nightmare of standing in a long queue for inedible food, referred to as the "lunch line" in most public schools.  I still have vivid recall of a concoction at Havre de Grace Elementary called "chicken a la king," a mixture that I'm certain contained the leftover white paste that the second-graders refused to eat that morning. 

The emotional damage from that daily ritual is probably one of the reasons I won't eat at a buffet if there are more than five people ahead of me waiting for the woman at the cash register to find her reading glasses.

As an adult, most bad things that happen to you involve standing in line.  If you don't believe that, you haven't visited the DMV lately.

So my refusal to stand in line for anything is justified.

That's why I feel no remorse in telling my wife "no" when she insisted I buy some lottery tickets during that historic week that ended with three new American multimillionaires.

Oh, I had every intention of tossing away seven of our hard-earned dollars.  It wasn't the money.  I think seven bucks is a reasonable price for the hours of in-home entertainment spent discussing America's most popular dilemma.  No, not a debate regarding ways to fix the economy, or words exchanged over solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, or even verbal speculations over which brainless celebrity Kim Kardashian is sleeping with this week.  (Yes, in some social circles, that is a real topic.)  During that week, the burning question being bandied across millions of dinner tables in the U.S. was "what would you do with $650 million?"

I didn't mind the waste of seven dollars to add a little juice to that question. 

I went so far as to drive the eight miles to Arizona to buy tickets from our favorite lottery purveyor, the Dam Bar (a place in Beaver Dam, Arizona, so you know I'm not making that up). 

It's a little hole in the wall that shares a dirt parking lot with a convenience store that has been offering the same two cans of Spam on their shelf since before Clinton did not have sexual relations with that woman. 

The first hint that something was amiss came when I noticed cars parked along both sides of the road leading up to the store.  We're talking about Beaver Dam's downtown district, where the only other business operations are a Navajo woman selling jewelry from under a tent and a lady offering $8 haircuts from a 1978 Winnebago.  (Again, anyone who has visited the Dam Bar can confirm that I'm not making this up.)

In the distance I could see a mushroom shaped cloud rising into the sky.  Instead of a nuclear blast from a nearby Nevada test site, it was simply the dust from dozens of cars circling repeatedly while trying to find a place to park in the overfilled unpaved lot. 

Winding across that lot were two lines of people.  One line spewed out of the entrance to the convenience store, winding back and forth along a walkway, continuing across the parking lot, and finally snaking west down the highway.  The other line was like a mirror image coming from the Dam Bar, only ending in a line heading east along the same highway.

Using the crowd-counting skills I had honed estimating gatherings while covering events as a reporter, I determined that there was somewhere between 400 and 27,812 people waiting in line.  I was pretty sure they weren't there to purchase the vintage Spam.

I took one look at that line and turned the car around to head back to Nevada.  I was not going to wait in ANY line for three hours.  Not even for $650 million.

I took great delight that night when the Mega Millions numbers were drawn.  Out of the seven sets of numbers we were prepared to play (our "lucky" numbers, the ones that have cost us hundreds of dollars over the years in losing tickets), we matched three: one number from one set, and two numbers from another set.

I felt vindicated.  And, in a strange way, very lucky.  Because if our numbers had popped out of the ping pong ball machine after I had refused to line up for a winning ticket, I'm pretty sure my wife would have me standing in another long Las Vegas line by the end of the following week...waiting my turn for the initial hearing at divorce court.