Wait for it

“Harry Potter Fans wait up to 10 hours to ride Universal Orlando’s newest roller coaster” – Time.com. https://time.com/5607217/harry-potter-ride-universal-10-hour-line/

Yes you read right. The wait for the new Harry Potter ride, Hagrid’s Motorbike at Universal Orlando is ten hours.

Who are these people waiting for ten hours?

I mean it, who are they because I can’t wrap my head around their thinking. Are they the same people who camp out in line for hours in front of Best Buy on Thanksgiving to score the Black Friday 50-inch TV deal? The same deal I can get shopping online? Those people? Someone explain this craziness to me!

I’m not ashamed to admit I have the patience of a sleep deprived toddler waiting in line. My threshold until a full-on meltdown is two minutes. Just last week Hazel and I were waiting in a stagnant line at my bank and I had to leave because an epic tantrum was about to happen at the foot of the change counting machine.

“I had to get out of there. I have a zero tolerance policy for waiting in line,” I announced as we left.

“Ya think?” was Hazel’s reply. We came back later to no line, no wait. Just the way I like it. I would not do well in a communist country.

According to the Time magazine article, people arrived as early as 4:40 a.m., waited 8-10 hours and felt the ride was “worth the wait.” I don’t care if the ride includes a personal VIP tour of Hogwarts with Hagrid, Harry and Hermione, all I can chug Butterbeer and an autographed selfie with J.K. Rowling giving me a $100 bill with her teeth it ain’t worth the wait. Hold everything! I just read in the article the theme park provided free water to the hundreds waiting in line. Free water? Oooh…I’m sure that made the 10-hour wait fly by.

I have to assume not all park guests were feeling the “worth the wait” vibe since park management decided to implement a virtual line app which alerted people when their turn was pending so they could actually enjoy more than one ride that day. I wonder if the app was more about assuaging the irate guests or that it was calculated how much money the free water drinking people weren’t spending on items like “I’m with stupid” t-shirts.

Here’s the bottom line: you’ll never catch me in one over two minutes long unless it’s for something really important such as buying tickets for my daughter’s basketball game or to ring up my cinnamon roll Pop-Tarts at Target. Rest assured Universal Orlando and Best Buy people – you can have your crazy long lines and all the free water, to yourselves.