All for one and one for all

My previous post told us about the sort of cloth headed things one needs to do when the partner is standing in the queue for food. The partner, in the meanwhile, was bored stiff. He took to observing those fellow sufferers in queue with him.

It turns out the family right in front of him had adopted a fundamentally different approach from the one we had adopted. We had decided to go for the divide and rule policy – queues vs scourging for seats. The family in front of us seemed to be staunch believers that everything was an experience to be shared by all. Every time, I circled back to see how the queue inhabitants were doing, I had the All-for-one-and-one-for-all song ringing in my head. Not that there was anything wrong with this approach, but it did seem like the children could have done with some time to sit quietly while the food was ordered. There were two children, and two adults. They did not seem to be complaining to us, but, I couldn’t help noticing the children spilling all over them and crying (1 infant plus one girl). At one point, the infant in their arms attempted a parabolic dive into a location known to her alone from her father’s arms. The older one had a most unpleasant expression on her face. Like Disneyland wasn’t at all the magical place she’d expected. The poor child probably thought that if somebody waved their wands, the food would find their way to them.

Ever the resilient birds, they waited. Nature had taught them that patience is rewarded with a plate of whatever was up there on the menu charts. The line snaked slowly, dully, their aching legs causing them to squat even. Eventually, they reached the counter.

The whole time, we’d been there, the menu was written in large signboards and were flashing in front of us. The husband and brother, who were the queue heroes for the day, had prepared  a magnificent list to recite at the counter, replete with dessert. According to them, if you were standing for this long, it might as well be a grand lunch. Admirable sentiments, if not wholly agreeable to the belly.

Imagine our chagrin therefore, that the all-for-one-family spent a full 10 minutes deciding what it was they planned to eat at the counter. I mean – the dishes were right there! Could they have missed the boards? Not possible, it was the only thing to look at, with hunger gnawing at your insides.

After getting the food, they would have to find seats and then eat. I wonder what they managed to see at the Park that day. We managed a decent list because the husband’s fine-tuned fast pass algorithm saw him rushing from one end to the other and picking up fast passes, so we could get the rides lined up. For the remaining part, we went for the less popular rides and had fun all the same.

Sometimes, divide and rule works.