Hate Lines

Queues.

Line-ups. Shuffling paths of the morose. Processions entirely lacking in applause or dignity. Cavalcades of quiet retching and silent screams.

These are the gateway to any Olympic experience.

The venue, finally visible at the end, is often bitterly disappointing - like Quebec House, whose ten-minute line yielded a warehouse full of people all trying to find the exit (and a diner, and an empty stage...yay?) Saskatchewan House appeared similarly empty and desolate, though, to be fair, I think those qualities very much embodied the feel of Saskatchewan itself.

Rumors continue to fly - of good pavillions, and free goodies, hiding, somewhere (today apparently Bell was giving out headphones), but I can’t help but feel suspicious... Yes, we could let others know which venues are good, and which a total waste of precious time, but then, inevitably, everyone would line up at the actually good pavillions, and the lines would go from excessive to f*ing insane....and it’s already next-to-impossible to get into any venue with your sanity intact. Not to mention how especially difficult it is for those of us who actually live here, and have jobs, and can’t spend our youth trapped in a line, at the end of which there may or may not be a Vancouver-made "German sausage" of decent quality.

Ugh. Olympics. You had me so close to being won over with your promise of free goodies and plentiful free concerts.

But, no matter how much I love Corb Lund, I just can’t spend three hours in a line to get through security in order to see him, not after an eight hour day. I have puppies. They need me, and they pee on my floor if I don’t go home. And it’s not like I can take the puppies into the free concert, even though it’s located in a large park, because you’ve surrounded the park with chain-linked fences and forced everyone to enter through a single security entrance...which, even though there are 16,000 police in the city, the gate is so understaffed and slow that, even when there are no scheduled events taking place, the line is a half hour long.

Longest wait reported (for the zip-line, and concerts of well-known bands): 5-6 hours. I die inside.

Does security actually make anyone safer? If I were bent on causing terror, wouldn’t I just get on a bus, or a skytrain, or go to a movie theatre, or walk into one of the countless crowds of slow-walking tourists, milling in the streets like cholesterol? ...And would I really want to go to a Sam Roberts concert anyways? Really?

(For the record, I am not a terrorist, nor do I condone the terrorist actions of others, no matter how pissed off they may be. Please do not shoot me. God bless.)