The philosophical debate surrounding the nature of good and evil has raged for millennia.  But, instinctively, you know when something in life is just plain wrong.  Wearing socks with sandals; chocolate and chilli; Turkey Twizzlers.  A new arrival into this category of abhorrence is single-file pub queues.  How has this started to happen?  It feels… creepy.  As though the entire country’s pub-going populace have all been taken over by an alien race of body snatchers; one that has studied our habits sufficiently to recognise that, in most social situations, we, as a nation, like to form neat, orderly queues, but not realising that the one exception to this rule is in the pub.

I would like to blame Gen Z for this phenomenon––the concept of buying rounds already seems to have practically become extinct on their generation’s watch––but I am not sure they are the instigators; maybe, only the followers.  Popular opinion has it that the single-line pub queue is a hangover from social distancing, like the long covid of pub protocol.

The single-file pub queue is altogether too polite.  There needs to be an element of rough and tumble about trying to buy a drink; a primeval display of the survival of the fittest; even a quotient of sexual display.  The elbowing aside of rivals; staking a pitch with a hand on the bar counter; the peacock-like exhibitionism of trying to catch the bartender’s attention; ultimately, the smug superiority of being able to concede your position to an overlooked wallflower: “You were before me.”

The single queue blows all these long-held rituals out of the water.  Negates all the emotions: the anxiety of being snubbed; the frisson of excitement accompanying attention; the annoyance at those who deliberately ignore the established etiquette; the ultimate satisfaction of receiving service.

The apparent chaos of a traditional pub queue reveals both the worst and the best in humanity.  Good and evil, it is all there.  Don’t let that fundamental contest disappear for the sake of some kind of misguided social propriety.

© Beery Sue

Nothing stands between Beery Sue and her drink.