My Observations

About a week ago I was in the line at the Walmart pharmacy waiting to pick up some Claritin-D. I was standing in one of two lines and the one that I stood in fed into two registers. There was a Hispanic woman with her little girl standing in the line opposite mine. They were watching their cart, which was full of items and parked towards the benches at the back of the makeshift pharmacy space. In front of me was a woman who was talking on the cellphone about how she had been waiting for quite a while and didn't understand why her prescription hadn't been processed yet. There were two women at the registers that I was waiting in line to get to, both of whom were having lengthy transactions performed for them. After I had been waiting in line a couple of minutes, a pushy middle aged woman showed up behind me. She decided that even though the line I was in was feeding into the two registers, that it would be alright if she started her own line going to one of the registers. Ignoring my death glare, she proceeded to wait in her makeshift line until the register she had chosen opened up. Thus, even though I had been waiting longer, she was served first. Already in a bad mood, I was all the more irritated when I finally got up to the register and realized that a blond woman had decided to move the line right up to my heals. Luckily, I was able to buy the Claritin-D quickly and leave.

Interestingly, line etiquette is much different here in Texas than it is Northern Virginia.
In Northern Virginia, people conscientiously leave a foot or two of space between the counter where people are paying and the beginning of the line. This is especially vital in a pharmacy, where people might be buying items that they would rather others didn't see; however, in Texas personal space seems to be less of an issue. This fits in with other behavioral differences between the cultures of these two very different states. It makes sense that in a place where there is a more friendly atmosphere even among strangers that there would be less concern about privacy.