---------------------------------------- Note  29   lines 
               *** A Story by Dr. Graper ***
 
         9/13/79   1:25 am     graper / udperuse / unidel
Lines
 
        These past few days I seem to have spent more time
in lines than I have reading news articles in national
magazines or lots of other stuff far more interesting.
Lines are the ultimate human ugly thing.  A snake of 
inefficiency that trails off back, back into the recesses
of human endurance.
        Many lines aren't too bad.  Lines at supermarkets
are ok.  You stand there with your loaf of Stone Ground 
whole wheat bread under one arm and your 2-liter bottle of
RC Cola in the other and stare at the nifty magazines in
the magazine racks.  
        "Well, I have a friend who has cancer.  At least
she thinks______ she has cancer," an ugly woman in front of me
says to a plain looking 27 year old Caucasian male with a
big nose.  She is obviously talking about herself and her
own fears of cancer.
        "Well, I think the best thing to do is go to a 
doctor and make sure," he responds.  His voice sounds like
 
---------------------------------------- Response 1 of 7
               *** A Story by Dr. Graper ***
 
         9/13/79   1:27 am     graper / udperuse / unidel
a home smoke alarm.  Sort of.
        "Well, she doesn't know.  She thinks______ she has 
cancer."
        "Well, I think the best thing to do is go to a 
doctor and make sure," he says again.  Here we have the 
perfect closed universe.
        Only five people away from that magical counter
that rolls my food along on that little conveyer belt! I
think quietly.
        "Well, she doesn't know.  She thinks______ she has 
cancer," she says again, putting cat food on the counter
conveyer belt.
        There are nifty magazines all around to read and
maybe even buy.  One says, CURE FOR CANCER FOUND BUT KEPT
SECRET!! in big letters across the front.  Another says,
ELVIS' SECRET DEATH PACT!!  The best one said, JACKIE
AND BIGFOOT SEE UFO OVER BERMUDA TRIANGLE; ALIEN BEINGS
REVEAL CURE FOR CANCER!!!  This is the one for me to read.
        "Excuse me," a woman says behind me.  She wants my
 
---------------------------------------- Response 2 of 7
               *** A Story by Dr. Graper ***
 
         9/13/79   1:29 am     graper / udperuse / unidel
place, but she'll try to be nice about it.
        "I left the line just to get a roll of toilet paper.
Could you please move so I could get back in place?"
        A likely story indeed.  Her shopping cart is full
of Pop Tarts and Taco Chips and she just wants to stall me.
        "Could you please move??" she reiterates.  Time to
react.
        "Do you hear me?"
        I roll my eyes back in my head to look weird.  "I'd
KILL for Rock'n'Roll, Man!" I say, impersonating a psychotic
drug addict.  I point at the JACKIE/BIGFOOT/UFO newspaper.
"Here's the truth!"
        She makes some huffy noises with her nostrils and
backs out her stupid old cart and goes to the next isle.
Too bad.
        The newspaper is great.  It is written in single
syllable words, and is easy to read due to its large print.
The main story was this:  It was rumored that Jackie Kennedy
and Bigfoot were seen in the north Canadian woods by a
trapper and then they were met by a UFO from the Bermuda
 
---------------------------------------- Response 3 of 7
               *** A Story by Dr. Graper ***
 
         9/13/79   1:31 am     graper / udperuse / unidel
Triangle which, in exchange for directions to the planet
Uranus gave them the secret cure for cancer.  Jackie and
Bigfoot, being the philanthropic types decided to sell the
secret to Phizler Pharmaceutical Labs and then suffered
total amnesia and forget everything and Phizler was about
to market the drug when the formula was stolen by Defense
Department spies on orders from the Pentagon in order to
preserve the effectiveness of the new secret cancer bomb
they had spent all last year working on.
        And suddenly, it was time to put my goods on the
magical supermarket counter/conveyer belt!  Such fun!
        Now, supermarkets aren't so bad.  Their lines are,
well, pretty tolerable.  But University lines aren't.
        It can be with getting into courses, registering,
buying books or the myriad of other little pains the 
University really digs.  You stand there in a line for up
to 2 hours, staring at someone's back to purchase a felt
tip pen.  Of the fifteen counters and cash registers, 
two are open.
        The worst of all is the class signup lines.  
 
---------------------------------------- Response 4 of 7
               *** A Story by Dr. Graper ***
 
         9/13/79   1:33 am     graper / udperuse / unidel
Especially for those "high demand" classes.  You stand in
line for an hour just to find out that every class is
filled.
        It's always the same.  There's always an immensely
fat woman sitting behind the sign up table, wearing those
half-glasses that librarians use which have the little
chain that goes around their necks so they can fall off
and put them back on real easy.  
        And they're always eating.  And they're always
named things like Thelma, Gladys or Myrna.  And they just
let you stand in that damned line, waiting, waiting, waiting
and then tell you that everything is closed.
        "Closed?  What do you mean closed?" the person in
front of me shouts.  You or I never shout.  We're mature.
        "It's Closed!  C-L-O-S-E-D! Try again next year."
        "I've been standing in this *%$% line for an hour!"
        (Never use obscenities with these people.  It just
makes them more indignant.)
        "Look, if you'd preregistered. . ."
 
---------------------------------------- Response 5 of 7
               *** A Story by Dr. Graper ***
 
         9/13/79   1:35 am     graper / udperuse / unidel
        "I did, but the damned computer screwed up my
entire sche. . ."
        "I don't program the computer."
        That's obvious, I think.
        "I'm a senior!! I need this class!!"
        "Look, you want to get on the waiting list??"
She rolls out the waiting list, which has 500 people on
it.  Here is a human being that has ceased to be a human
being.  She is as close to a ape/pig or ape/cow as I have
ever seen.
        I'm still waiting.
        The fellow in front of me walks off in a huff.
        It's my turn.
        "Just a moment," she says.  "Hey, Irene?  Eye-REEN!
Gwan get me some lunch."
        I'm waiting.
        "I wanna coke. . . .wha?  WHA??  I sayd, I wanna
coke and some low fat yogurt. . .I sayd, low faht
YO-GUT!!  YO-GUT!!"
        Lo-fat.  Now honestly, isn't that like throwing
 
---------------------------------------- Response 6 of 7
               *** A Story by Dr. Graper ***
 
         9/13/79   1:36 am     graper / udperuse / unidel
a teaspoon of water on a forest fire?  This woman is so
obese it's silly.
        "An' I wanna . . . .wha?"
        Why am I standing here?  I know everything will be
closed and I'll end up taking "History of The Banjo HE445."
        She can't hear her friend who has just left, and
her little mind is upset.  She might not get her lo-fat
yogurt.
        She looks at me.  It's time.
        "Sorry, closing up for lunch."
        "But, I've been waiting for an hour."
        She gets out a magazine which has a picture of
Jackie Kennedy and Bigfoot stepping out of a UFO.
        "We are closed.  C-L-O-S-E-D."
        What do I do.  My mind checks pleasing alternatives.
Pulling an UZI Israeli sub-machine gun out of my backpack
would be nice.  Pulling the trigger, feeling the percussive
rhythm of the stock against my shoulder, the sounds of the
casings flying out and bouncing on the floor, glass 
spiderwebbing and shattering behind her, the piles of
 
---------------------------------------- Response 7 of 7
               *** A Story by Dr. Graper ***
 
         9/13/79   1:36 am     graper / udperuse / unidel
forms on the table flying all over, the rattle of the
newspaper as it is torn apart.
        I leave and head off to add HISTORY OF THE BANJO,
He 445.  Nothing else.  No ground glass in the lo-fat
yogurt.  No bomb in the car.  Not even a complaint.  Aren't
I mature?