Take a Number

Now here's a relatively unknown national past time. Taking a number. I don't know how this works in other countries, but I'd certainly never seen anything like this before. Swedes are rather manic when it comes to order and sequence. And nothing says order more than the number queue. Those red fire hose reel number dispensers will become your source of hatred, as well as your necessary lifeline. So how does it all work. Well, be warned that it's not that easy to spot which place will have a number dispenser, and where that dispenser will be located once you enter. You find the cursed spawns of the devil at banks, doctors, shops, chemists, even at the car mechanic workshop. If you want to be acknowledged in any way, shape, or form, by the occupiers of the premises, push the button next to the number dispenser, take the piece of paper with the number printed on it, and wait for your number to appear on the digital display. Which is located in some equally random place. So try and find that early on too. Having the number system means that serving staff no longer have to have to endure any kind of stress by looking at groups of people waiting to be served. The simple "can I help you ?" has been consigned to the shoebox in the back of the wardrobe of customer service. Even those appearing to be wandering aimlessly around the shop are under no obligation to help you. Unless your number has come up. And here's where you get to have a win. Once your number comes up, you OWN the store. Take as long as you like, chat forever, change you mind a hundred times. Pay no attention to the other 20 poor saps still waiting, praying, for their number to appear. Just like you were 15 minutes ago. This is your time in the spotlight. Drink it in. Cherish it for all it's worth. You are a god. Don't fight this system, no matter how ludicrous it looks. And it does. The crowning irony in all this, is the amount of waste paper produced by those infernal number tickets, in a society which champions waste minimisation. Sometimes I think that people can't see the wood for the trees.