What a strange little behavior among the people I ride the ferry with. This morning I decided that instead of getting into line and watching people cut up the exit, I would walk up the exit at a pace matched to the line. I heard the cutters backing up behind me and even heard a woman barely whisper the word “excuse me”. When I ignored her, she sort of slid past me and I said, “Oh, I’m sorry, I’m a part of this line,” pointing to the people slowly boarding the boat. She looked back at me but didn’t say anything. Incredibly, as I was saying it, three other people pushed past both of us! Then a small woman, probably in her late 50s or early 60s, said to me in a very sweet voice and with a smile, “You’re blocking the line.” “Oh, well, you see,” I said, “I’m a part of this line here.” She sprang to attention when I said that and responded, “So am I!” She started walking that pace, too.

What’s really amazing about this experiment is that, the people in line, for whom I was making this scene, said nothing. I don’t even think many of them looked my way. Just as when I tried to do something like this last time, one woman, one woman whispered, nodded, and smiled at me—as if she didn’t want the rest of the party to know she approved of my dissent.