Lines. Everywhere you go, you're stuffed into a line and made to wait:

Want coffee? Get in line.
Buying groceries? Get in line.
Wanna kick W's ass? Get in line.

DMV…

What is our obsession with lines? Ever been to that theme park with the giant anti Semitic rat? Lines. Endless lines. And people run, knocking children and the elderly out of their way, simply gonzo to get their spot in line.

It weirds me out almost as much as it annoys the crap out of me.

A short time ago, Gwen and some friends of ours decided it was finally time to check out America's tallest building: The Sears Tower. Ever since I first saw Ferris Bueller's Day Off, I have wanted to go to the top of this architectural marvel, lean my head against the glass, look down and enjoy the cheap thrill of extreme vertigo.

Simple dreams, dear friends, simple dreams.

We arrived at the ground floor entrance and immediately found ourselves shuffled into a line for our turn on the elevator which – we foolishly assumed – would take us up the tower. Actually, after a fifteen minute lag time and being rudely shoved about, we discovered that the elevator went DOWN and opened up into: another line.

This line, as it turns out, was for the metal detector. Metal detector?!? What the hell for? Is the sears tower a hot spot for snipers??

"Watch out for that old lady and her grandkid – they look suspicious…"

"Better frisk that dude in the wheel chair – it could be a clever terrorist ruse…"

"Sorry Ma'am, your kid has to leave his leg braces here…"

Yes, naturally we all live in ball shrinking terror of little kids in leg braces.

(insert me rubbing my temples and taking a deep breath here)

After a grueling ten minutes, this line empties into… anyone? Another g*ddamned line, that's what! Ever been on a roller coaster where they forcibly snap your picture – screaming and or throwing up? This line had the same idea.

I'm not stupid. I know this was a security ploy masked as a cheesy souvenir. I know this, because you were not allowed to skip this step. 

NOT ALLOWED. 

So, begrudgingly, we were shuffled in front of a big green screen, made to pose like morons and then ushered into… another… friggin'… line.  I shit you not. This line was mercifully for tickets (at thirteen bucks a head) and I sighed as yet another fifteen minutes off my life withered, died and floated away. 

You'd think that at this point, we'd be in the elevator speeding to the top, ready to reap the benefits of our polite patience. Noooooooooo. Our celebratory sprint was abruptly cut short by -- a line. To the elevator, you ask?

HA, I say, HA.

This line, this fifteen minutes of agonizing social outrage, was to gain entrance into a small theater where we were subjected to a twenty minute mini-documentary of the Sears Tower. I'll spare you the mindless details save to say that the word "erection" got used way too often to be taken seriously. 

At long (hehe), loooooong last, we were finally stuffed into an express elevator that took us to the top. Yah-f**kin-hoo. Doing the head lean thing took all of five minutes. We then spent a good twenty minutes wandering around and reading some of Chicago's history that had been conveniently pasted up for our embetterment. My comment to Gwen at this point was;

"Gee honey, if they had all this shit posted up along the way, I might not have minded standing in all those god-awful lines…"

We then – you guessed it – got in line for the ride back down.

This is not quite the end of our grand adventure, oh no, not for The Fellowship of the Tower -- nay. As we birthed ourselves from the tiny express elevator, we plunged headlong into the five minute line to look-at-and-then-reject the lame photo of us superimposed in front of a random skyline. Then into the ten minute, "Thanks for visiting the Sears Tower" line for the elevator up and at last, out.

(sigh)

If there is a hell, it's an endless line to nowhere.