I witnessed a delicious little karmic incident at Star Market in Porter Square this afternoon. My shopping trip was pretty routine up until the end but the end was very satisfying.

I had run into this mean-looking wiry little fellow with a big bushy Amish beard a few times going up and down the aisles, and he was all business, and all angles—you know, the type who would jab you with a sharp little elbow if you crossed into his caucasian chalk circle by chance. It could be that he just looked mean, but I have a feeling that by a certain age—and he was definitely a certain age—you look pretty much like what you are.

Just as I was heading to the self-checkout he showed up again. He was rooting around in an end cap close to the check-out lane I was heading for and arrived to before he did—not that I was racing him for a spot in the queue. It wasn't busy, and there was only one customer ahead of me. Except, all the sudden, there were two.

I think he thought that since he had obviously intended to get in that checkout lane, before I had even shown up, it was rightfully his spot.

This is a little like the Masshole version of four-way stops. Say there are three cars backed up heading East, and one car comes up to the four-way stop going South. The South-bound car doesn't have to wait until all three of the East-bound cars go through the four-way stop to go himself, just because two of the East-bounders got there a bit before him, and the third arrived around the same time.

The way it should be: one East-bound car proceeds, then the South-bounder, then the next East-bounder. But any Masshole worth his salt in the East-bound lane will tailgate the car ahead of him so that he can get through before the South-bounder, because, dammit, he was there first! The third East-bounder will likely try to squeak through without stopping at the actual intersection, too, because, anyway, he'd already stopped once.

We may not know rotaries in Indiana, but we have those four-way stops down pat. I know what I'm talking about here.

At any rate, back at Star Market. If my mean little man had claimed the spot I had usurped I had no way of knowing it, because he had not indicated it outwardly in any way. Sometimes it's not clear if you're in the line or out of it, but he was definitely between two lines, and had not declared.

In other words, I think a pretty strong case could be made that this man had cut in front of me with malice aforethought, and that, if we were to come before Judge Judy, say, he would claim that he had clearly intended to get in that line long before I arrived on the scene and brazenly grabbed the spot that was obviously rightfully his.  Judge Judy would side with me.  He would be reduced to gaping like a fish and soiling himself.  And the world would be set to rights.

Because, as Judge Judy would know, unlike him I wasn't dilly-dallying and farting around, flitting from lane to lane. When I choose a queue I'm in the queue, for better or worse, and you can plainly see that I'm there, in the queue, waiting patiently for my turn. I don't rely on my ESP to communicate my intentions to others. I don't merely psychically occupy the space, I physically occupy it as well. That's the thing about queues that catches some people off-guard. Mostly, you have to physically be there to be in the line.  That's the whole point of the line, see.

But it's hardly worth it to make a fuss.  And I could see that my guy was on a mission, and I wasn't in a rush, and there were three other lanes to choose from, all about the same wait, seemed to me, so I moved over to another one, two over from where he was.

As it turned out my new lane was going pretty fast, and before I knew it I was checking out. And he was still standing there. And while I was starting to check out the station in front of mine freed-up, too.

And there he was, still waiting. Ha.

So was another guy—a nicer-looking one, at that—in the lane next to mine. So I called over to that guy to tell him the station in front of mine was free, if he wanted to scooch in there.

And when I'd finished I looked over and that mean little queue-cutter was still waiting in his little queue.

Which seemed about right.