I am a professional Line-Stander. I stand in lines professionally. My most recent gig has me lining up for something big. What is it?

I’ve been line-standing for years. It’s a good gig. I was once a temp worker, but I realized that most of what I was doing at those jobs could be done by a robot. But line standing - there is no line-standing robot. Most of my gigs are for electronics. I’ll wait overnight in the freezing cold for the new iPhone, or some super high-tech television. I’ll show up the day before Handheld Turkey Day and stand in line for the latest console just so my client can make sure their kid has the hottest gift of the season. Once I had to wait for 38 hours in an IKEA parking lot for a Swedish meatball maker. Recently, I took on a client that was notably secretive about the gig. They offered me my highest rate ever, and wanted me to line up in a location they wouldn’t disclose. I get weird jobs all the time, so I wasn’t too curious. I figured maybe there’s some luxury car being released that I’d never heard of. The client sent me the GPS coordinates and I drove up. It was a warehouse in the middle of nowhere. I arrived around 9:00 AM, which is very late for a line stander. Typically, I’ll arrive at least a day ahead of time. But when I pulled up, there was already a line. The warehouse had a massive steel door, and a tiny glass door off to the side with a camera and a keypad. There were some concrete steps, and a railing leading down to the steel door. Along that railing, there were about 50 people in line ahead of me, and a few behind. We were all on a small asphalt parking lot. I parked in the dirt just off the lot, and walked up to the line. There were people set up with smallish tents. I recognized the NorthFace logo on one of them, which suggested to me that the people in line had money, or were at least willing to spend good money to be here. I approached a cluster of three tents, with people passing a small pipe between them. They were all wearing beanies and looked like they were from Colorado or Vermont or somewhere like that. “Mind if I jump in?” I asked. One of them, a girl who couldn’t have been more than 25, looked me up and down and said “not at all.” They all moved down so I could take a spot on the asphalt. “Thanks,” I said. “I’m Bob.” “I’m River,” she said, extending her hand. The pipe made its way to River, who took a hit and passed it to me. I took a little hit. It was good. “Have you been here long?” “We got here yesterday morning. We were worried it would be a lot longer line,” she said. I worked my way down the line, chatting with people. The first group I met behind River and her crew were a few guys who said they were influencers. I didn’t recognize them, but they told me they had millions of followers and were very influential. We chatted for a while. They were really into bodybuilding and the gym, and one of them showed me a picture of himself holding a shark (it was fake, but I was still impressed). I went down the line a few more spots. Each group of people was stranger than the last. There was a couple who were clearly rich. They had an air mattress and a little pop-up canopy. They were playing Scrabble on little travel edition with the pieces velcroed to the board. Then there was a small group of college students. I smelled whiskey as I approached, and they offered me a swig. They had a little battery powered speaker and were playing a lot of Nirvana. You get the idea. Every group I met had their own reasons for being there, but none of them knew what it was they were lining up for. I decided to go to the last person in line and work my way back up. I figured they would have gotten there most recently, and maybe they’d heard something down the line. As I walked down the line, I noticed that it didn’t seem to end. It kept going, and the people got stranger and stranger. There was a guy with a dog, but he wasn’t really a dog. It was wearing a vest that said “service animal,” and it looked like a dog from the front, but its back half looked more like a wolf. I’m not even kidding. There was a woman who claimed to be a robot, but I think she was just being sarcastic. Then there was a guy who was claiming that the world was going to end on January 1, 2024, and he was trying to convince people to join his doomsday bunker in Nebraska. And there was a woman who was dressed like a time traveler from the 1880s. I got to the end of the line and it was a young guy. He was playing on his phone. “Hey, mind if I jump in?” I said. He looked up at me. “Oh no, we’re not in line. I just pulled over to take a shit and sent my brother to the gas station down the street to get some coffee. We’re over there,” he motioned to an idling Jeep Cherokee on the side of the road. “Dammit. I thought you were the end of the line,” I said. “I think we’ve all been in this line for so long we’ve forgotten what a line even is,” he said. I laughed. “I guess you’re right.” I walked back towards my spot in line, and was almost there when I saw a man in a black suit walking down the line towards me. He stopped every few feet and was talking to people, and after a minute I realized he was walking right for me. “Hello sir,” he said when he approached. “My name is Agent Thompson, and I am with a government agency. You are in line here, correct?” “I am. I’m a line stander.” “Do you know what you are waiting in line for?” “No. My client didn’t say. I just got GPS coordinates.” “Well,” he said, handing me a piece of paper. It was a check for $100,000. “This is for you, in exchange for leaving the line immediately.” I looked at the check, then back at Thompson. “I don’t know,” I said. “Sir, please reconsider. If you-“ “What’s going on here?” River had walked up and was now standing next to me. She looked at Agent Thompson, and her expression changed. She looked scared. “This man is willing to pay you to leave the line,” I explained. Just then, a voice echoed from a PA system. “Identification is being distributed. Please be patient and stay in line.” Thompson looked at the ground and walked away. River and I walked back to her cluster of tents. The other two people in her crew were packing things up. “What’s going on?” I asked. “We’re leaving,” one of them said. “Why?” I asked. “We can’t be a part of this,” River said, looking around nervously. “Part of what?” I asked. But River just looked at me and said “you should get out of here too.” Thus ended my conversation with River and her crew. They took off in their car, and left me alone in the line. More and more people started leaving as the day went on. I saw Agent Thompson a few times, and he was always talking to people in huddles at the edge of the line. Eventually, it was just me and a few other people. I started going down the line again, like I had in the morning. I met an older couple who said they were from the Midwest. They were retired high school teachers, and they told me that they’d been in line since the morning of the day before. I kept going, and met a couple who said they were from Nambia. They said it was a small country in southern Africa. They were dressed in what looked like animal hides, and they were sitting on sand-colored Padogi bags that they had piled together. They offered me dried meat, which I declined. I met a few more people, including a couple who said they’d been in line since the Clinton administration. They said they were from the future, but were stuck in the line. I decided to go back to my car and drive home. I had no idea what I was waiting for, and my client hadn’t paid me yet. I figured I’d just give them a call and ask wtf was going on. When I got to my car, I noticed that it was in a weird position on the dirt. I have a habit of parking my car in the same place, every time, so that I can find it more easily. It’s a quirk. And my car was about ten feet away from where it should have been. I figured maybe I was just mis-remembering. Maybe I’d parked on the asphalt and forgotten. I opened my car and the interior lights popped on. On the passenger seat, there was a cardboard box. On the box, there was a brown paper envelope addressed to me. I opened the envelope. Inside, there was a plastic badge. It was like an employee ID badge, but it just said “Bob” on it. There was also a card. It was like one of those hotel room key cards, but there was nothing written on it. I opened the box. There

I am a professional Line-Stander. I stand in lines professionally. My most recent gig has me lining up for something big. What is it?

Comments (1) 2329 👁️