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I just finished reading this article about how most Americans hate waiting more than a few minutes in line or on the phone. You know what? It's absolutely true!

If you think about it, I'm sure almost everyone reading this has a story or two about being impatient in line. I consider myself a cool-headed person most of the time, but I can think of many instances where I've acted like the people described in that article.

I think it has something to do with Americans' busy schedules overall. I know that when I'm impatient while waiting in line, I usually have something else that I need to do or somewhere else that I need to be. If I don't have any of those pressures, I can wait quite a while longer than I want to. One example - if I'm in a store before going to see a movie. The movie starts at a particular time, so I want to get out of there as quickly as I can so I can be on time for the movie to start.

Another factor in 'the waiting game' is a person's prior expectation of how long it will take to enter the store and buy whatever needs buying. If I have one or two things, you can bet I'll be upset if I'm behind someone who has a cartload of things. If I'm at the post office, I expect to have to wait a while. I just suck it up and do the waiting.

Something else to think about - a store's staffing policies. Who among us hasn't been upset when a store has only one or two people working the checkout and there's a huge line of people waiting to complete their purchases? I don't think this is changing anytime soon, though. It's just more cost effective for stores to have the minimum number of workers needed to do the job working at any one time. If there's a fluke influx of people at the checkout, so be it.

There's really no point to this post other than to do some out-loud thinking about the above article. I think it all boils down to what we want to do with our time. Waiting is something no one likes to do, so a few minutes in a checkout seems like an hour. When you're actually doing the shopping, a few minutes will fly right by. Am I right or am I right?