You may have seen Nirmal Purja’s photo of the huge line of climbers queued up on their way to the summit of Mt. Everest and thought, “Wow, I wonder if I could do that someday?”
Well, you can. Not climb Mt. Everest, necessarily, but you can definitely wait in line to do something. Here are eight other epic lines that you can access much more easily than you can that line of climbers in 8000-meter suits just below the Hillary Step on Mt. Everest.
1. The line at a music festival porta potty: No matter what, there will be a line when you get there. Longer if you’ve postponed peeing for 30 minutes to an hour because you were waiting for your favorite band to finish a set, and exponentially longer if you have to go No. 2, badly. It’s tough, but not as tough as being above Camp IV on Everest, where there are no enclosed restrooms.
2. The line to deplane when you’re in seat 38F on a domestic flight: Don’t even get your hopes up when the plane stops taxiing, or when you hear the ding signaling that the Fasten Seat Belt sign is turned off. You are in a window seat, at the back of the plane. Give up all hope. Read another chapter of a book, or take another nap.
3. The line at Shake Shack in the Theater District, NYC: As of 2014, Shake Shack customers had waited more than 109 million minutes, which is basically the modern-day equivalent of persistence hunting.
4. The line of cars waiting to get into Yosemite National Park on a summer weekend: It can take hours. And speaking of hunting, when you finally get in, where will you park?
5. The line of cars waiting to get out of Red Rocks Amphitheater after a show: Sure, it’s tedious, but compared to Everest, the waiting in the parking lot is pretty safe. And hey, at least the lines for the restroom weren’t that long.
6. The security line at the airport on Dec. 23: Travel experts recommend getting to the airport at least six hours before your flight departure time this holiday season. And have some patience. Oh, are you in seat 38F, too? Happy holidays indeed.
7. The line for Space Mountain at Disney World: In the longest wait time reported by Disney for this ride, you could watch Frozen at least twice. When people in line start questioning why you’re all waiting so long for Space Mountain, just reply: “Because it’s there.”
8. Whichever checkout line I pick at the supermarket, or anywhere, really: Hi, if you get in line behind me at the supermarket, you might wonder: Is that other line moving faster? Yes, it is. Every time.
—Brendan
