• Flying to Mexico for a festival, the line at customs being so long that airport employees were telling people to just squeeze into the line wherever they could.
    • Waiting our turn, and feeling good (but not superior!) about it.
    • [Please forgive this soapbox speech.] How it seems like one of the most basic, fundamental things you can do to make life better is to restrain yourself during tragedy-of-the-commons-ass situations like this one. The customs line became a chaotic glob because people saw others cutting and didn’t want to be the putz who got cut. Droughts worsen when people see their neighbors watering their lawns and think, “Why can’t I do that, too?” Even to an egalitarian person, it can seem like the only rational thing to do in these situations is to throw out your principles and fight for yourself. But it’s not. You can shrink the glob—make your life better, everyone’s life better—by joining the ad hoc line behind it (there was one), settling in for a long wait, moving up only when it’s fair to do so, showing other people it’s okay to choose line over glob. That’s not excessive self-sacrifice. It’s not sitting by while everyone else passes you. It’s using your one vote in what happens to the glob, which is still moving. Which, by its nature, is always moving.
  • On the highway, the wooden enclosure with an animal in it on the back of a pickup truck.
  • Reuniting with and hugging my grandma, Mavis.