by KRISTIAN GRAVENOR

I know what you do before you approach a lineup behind a cashier. You briefly scope out the money-takers to make sure you don't end up waiting behind a pathetically stupid slowpoke with a reptilian pulmonary system (a tip: avoid cashiers who dress like goths). You want to join the line leading to the manic, cash-handling Speedy Gonzales whose nimble fingers fly goods over the scanner like a jackrabbit on Dexatrim.

While waiting, you're tense. You relentlessly compare your progress to other lines. You doubt and second-guess your choice, lamenting the unjustifiable advance of latecomers. You watch out for personnel readying a new cash-if it opens you ram your cart in that direction like Guderian slamming through the Ardennes. Then you're forced to remember that Murphy's Law subclause that dictates that newly open cashiers welcome those who just strolled up to the area.

Waiting in these parallel lines is a stressful experience that brings out the cutthroat best in people. Yet there's an easily implemented option, a much better system that is all-too-rarely used, possibly because we as thickheaded consumers can't groove to the concept.

Lineups were once particularly frustrating in banks. Customers frequently found themselves behind a granny trying to organize a complex bank draft in Vatican City ducats while all the other lines whizzed with people who simply wanted a roll of quarters. Tempers frayed and exasperation reigned until banks installed single line-ups. The system allows customers to relax in the knowledge that they will get their turn fairly and in proper order.

But the single queue concept didn't catch on, even though fairness in lining up is considered an index of one's level of civilization. Places like England and Costa Rica boast that buttinskis will be dealt with by gang-mob thrashing. But in Montreal there's always some cherry picker hanging around the front of the line at a bus stop trying his luck.

McDonald's is the worst. Upon entering you don't know which cashiers are open, as all the uniforms are running around shaking salt on fries. So you stand behind any customer lingering around the counter. Eventually you realize that you're an idiot because that person's just waiting for an order to be ready and there's no cash open there. So you return to the end of the line just in time to see a new cash open to accommodate somebody who just walked in the joint.

A study I recall had people randomly report on what they were doing at random times during the day and to describe their corresponding mood. People were happiest while eating and unhappiest while watching TV or doing nothing. So waiting in line for food and eating food encompass both extremes of the emotional chart. To add injustice to the stressful wait is a recipe for disaster that can lead to hostility.

Last winter, Jonathan McDavid,19, got into a dispute over priority in queue at the cramped Alexis Nihon McDonald's. A fight ensued and Jonathan-a handsome young buck with brooding eyes-suffered a fractured bone in his face, went into a coma and later died. Two who allegedly beat him go before a judge next month. I knew Jonathan and find it doubly awful to think that a poorly organized lineup contributed to his too-early death.

So why don't places adopt the single line system? A flak at McDonald's explained that the layout of their places can't accommodate single lines. I don't buy it. A manager at the McDonald's in the Alexis Nihon told me that that single lines appear long and thus scare people off.

So in our dumbness we consumers prefer the inherently unfair multi-line system because we haven't trained our brains to appreciate the merits of single lines.

Our government should end the anxiety-causing multi-queue anarchy and pass a law requiring retailers to operate single-lineups. Call it Jonathan's Law. As a civilization we deserve order, fairness and peace of mind from the places that take our cash.

Comments? kgravy@openface.ca