My friend Mike likes to mess with people. More specifically, he likes to mess with tourists. He and I spend a tremendous amount of time waiting *in* lines (using “in” for Dina as opposed to “on”!) for music signings and concerts around the city. Without fail, someone is bound to approach us, of all people, in line and ask “What’s this line for?”
Without hesitation, Mike will spew out the most ridiculous one-liner describing some improbable and outlandish event to only have the person posing the question simply nod and respond “oh…” and even try to join the line. Seriously. Once the person would walk away, we’d fall out, laughing like mad. One recent example, while waiting to see Madonna at Roseland, Mike’s response to a curious passerby “We’re here to see special Edition of Glitter: 3D.”
After experiencing this time and time again, we decided that people are naturally drawn to lines. I’m not sure what it is. Maybe they think they’re missing out on something or maybe they overly curious, but I can honestly say I’ve never been inclined to just jump on a random line for no good reason. In fact, when I see massive lines or crowds, I tend to walk in the opposite direction — I HATE chaos.
Naturally, when this Engadget story hit yesterday about a massive line formed outside of the flagship Apple store on Fifth Ave in NYC, I just had to laugh. It all started around 9:36a when I received a text message from my boy Jonny Ice asking “what’s going on at the Apple store?”
I quickly checked the NYC Apple store website and found nothing of interest, so I shot him a note stating that. Baffled he kept asking – did the rumored 3G iPhone finally hit? Doubtful.
As the story unfolded, there was some chatter that an improv group, Improv Everywhere, was behind the prank. Funny stuff, guys, except their founder later denied this claim. According to an Apple store employee, those lines form every day with people trying to purchase an iPhone. Insane! But it further proved that people (New Yorkers, especially) will stop whatever they are doing and gravitate towards a massive line without even knowing what it’s for.
Mike would’ve had a field day if he was around Apple Store yesterday morning.
