Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Introvert meltdown

I had to stand in line a long time today at immigration in Bali. Something like two hours. I say "something like" because I didn't look at my watch when I first arrived and stood in the mob that evened out into lines eventually.
Everyone else had to stand and and wait a long time also. One of those someone's was a little boy in a stroller. At first he just quietly sat there, but after an hour or so, he had what I would call an introvert melt down.

Out of nowhere he started shouting. "I don't like it here! I don't like it here!"
His mom calmed him down, but in another five minutes or so he started up again:
"I don't like it here! I don't like people looking! Pleeease don't LOOOOOO0000k!" his sad little voice trailed off into a wail.
His mom calmed him down again, despite the people who were still--can you imagine their audacity?--looking at the poor kid.

Five minutes later: "It's too loud! It won't get out of my ears!"
Oh kid, I know how you feel.

Five minutes after that:
"It's so long!"
Don't I know it? Seriously, how inefficient was this immigration system? To make several hundred people stand in this room waiting for hours while more planes with more people to make more lines continued to arrive? This is really the best system they could come up with?
It was painful.
It was inefficient.
It was crisis causing for the introvert.

No comments: