From 3 hours to one, the waiting time in line for a chance to dig into a BAKE cheese tart has gone from auntie levels of absurdity to just plain ol’ ridiculous. Still, at the height of its hype, we braved the queue at the Hokkaido bakery’s ION Orchard outlet. And it gave us plenty of time to check out our fellow queue queens and kings. Who are they, you ask? The same few people you find in any long line.
The Professional Queue Master
These are the people (usually blokes) who sell their time on Carousell to queue for a stranger, or the people (also usually blokes) who sell their soul to queue for a girl. At least the former gets a little cash out of it. And because they really don’t give a damn about cheese tarts or H&M collaborations, these dudes evolve to become…
The Unhappy Camper
Also known as ‘The Boyfriend’. Grumbling like an empty stomach, these Unhappy Campers exhibit Singapore’s second favourite pastime (after queueing): complaining. From the customers at the front of the line to how long they’ve been standing to the limited quantities of product a single person can buy, their complaints rival those found in the comments section of any Straits Times story.
The Kaypoh Passer-by
Cordoned lines tend to attract the stares of passers-by who, because this is Singapore, eventually join the line for no other reason than, ‘Got queue sure good one.’ Most don’t even know what pot of gold awaits them at the end of the rainbow. Some will whip out their phones, snap a few shots and send to their equally delirious, queue-mongering friends.
The Prepared
They knew what they were in for. So they brought entertainment with them: episodes of their favourite (Korean) dramas, magazines and friends. Queueing is something they don’t just take pride in; it’s a quality – persistence? Tenacity? Conformity? – to which they aspire. They’re not to be trifled with. Cut the queue, and they’ll cut you.
The ‘I Got Your Back, Bro’ Bro
We mean this one quite literally. As the line bumbles along, these are the passive-aggressive folks who’ll ‘accidentally’ brush/bump/nudge/poke/bludgeon your back to get you to shuffle forward to close the 10-centimetre gap between you and the dude in front of you. Here’s a PSA for these bros: it’s the number of people in line, and not its length, that matters. Chew on that for a while.
Written by Hanan Haddad