THE HUMAN CONDITION / WAITING GAMES : Don’t Just<i> Stand</i> There--Do Something

Welcome to hell.

Here, everyone stands single file. There’s the mom with the two screaming kids. There’s the man babbling to his friend about last night’s conquest. There’s the grandmother up front who’s counting her change in pennies. And there’s the guy right behind you, the one who last bathed when Vanilla Ice was popular.

You stand there for 10 minutes. Then 20. Nobody’s moved. Soon an hour has gone by. You’ve moved 3 feet. There’s nothing but people in front of you. The only comfort is that there are now just as many people behind you.

If it’s true that idle hands are the devil’s playground, then the idle minds that result from standing in line have to be Satan’s back forty.

The post office. The bank. The grocery store. The local cineplex. The women’s bathroom at any concert or sporting event. Lines are everywhere, turning a perfectly normal day into a tedious nightmare.

So what the devil do you do to kill time?

Instead of simply fidgeting and muttering, which only serves to slow things down even more, some people have adopted ways to keep their minds moving even when the line isn’t.

“Lines can be a good thing,” says Sheri Falk, a Pepperdine graduate student. “You can use the time to organize yourself. I’ve balanced my checkbook while waiting in a line.”

The first step in line survival is to realize that there are two categories of lines: work and play. Each requires a different method for passing the time.

Work lines are what you encounter during the day--say, at the Department of Motor Vehicles. You get stuck in these because you have to, not because you want to. Play lines, on the other hand, tend to form at night or on weekends, and you choose to get in them because there’s a reward on the other end.

Some time-killing ideas are equally applicable in either circumstance. Take one of Falk’s favorites.

“I look at cute guys,” she admits. “When I get in a line, I start scoping immediately. I’ll look at a guy and wonder what he does. I wonder if I came back on another day, would he be there again. I might make conversation, but the goal isn’t to hook up with him.”

Talking is also an all-purpose way to pass line time, although it tends to be less productive in work lines.

“I like talking to people, except at the bank,” says Amy Womack, a 28-year-old photographer. “It’s like standing on Death Row there, it’s so quiet. You feel so uptight. You try looking at the tellers, but even they have those blank looks. It’s also torture at the post office because that’s the slowest line on Earth. Everyone is like a zombie in there. You always have to try to do something in there, or you just became like another zombie.”

Why all the Angst over lines?

“We don’t know how to stop anymore,” says Laura Schlessinger, therapist and talk-show host for KFI-AM. “Some people just don’t know how to be alone with their thoughts. But there are times when I look forward to those odd moments where nothing is happening.”

Schlessinger says she brings along her Walkman or a book if she’s waiting in a bank or post office line.

“Waiting in line is kind of like being stuck on the toilet, which is a perfect time to read dumb stuff,” she says.

There is one redeeming quality to work lines: If you don’t bring reading material, there’s usually plenty around.

“I’ll read all the posters (in the post office) about stamp collecting and changing your address,” says Jay Case, an account executive for Western International Media. “I suppose you could use your time in line to become better educated.”

Danny First, a 30-year-old graphic artist, says he’s come up with three paintings while waiting at the bank.

“I did the sketches right there,” he says. “I get more inspired at the bank, I guess. Maybe it’s all that money.”

Or, he says: “I start talking. The best line to use--and you have to choose the right person for this--is, ‘Are we going to do it the same way as last time?’ The person will go, ‘Excuse me?’ I say, ‘You know, robbing the bank! Are we going to do it the same way as last time? Don’t you remember?’ That usually gets people talking.”

Of course, when all else fails in a work line, there’s always the obvious activity: work.

“I usually walk around with my cellular phone and a stack of messages so I can return calls if I’m stuck in line,” says Schlessinger, who attributes her washboard stomach in part to the tummy-tightening exercises she’s been doing in lines for years.

Work lines are certainly the hardest to struggle through, because even when you get to where you’re going, there generally isn’t much fun waiting for you. Play lines offer food, a movie or a ballgame at the end, so the mood is lighter. You don’t have to kill time so much as wound it.

Talking, for example, seems more natural.

“I always start conversations in grocery store lines,” says Womack. “You look at the food other people have in their carts and say things like, ‘Oh, my God! I can’t believe you’re going to eat that!’ ”

By the time she’s ready to check out, she’s helped other people get through with a minimum of boredom as well. There was the time when the man in front of her showed off his still-twitching lobster. Another time, a discussion about pork and beans ended with someone offering a bean recipe to everyone waiting in the line.

There’s only one problem with talking as a time killer: Chances are there’s somebody nearby whose favorite diversion is eavesdropping.

“If there’s nobody to look at, I try to listen to other conversations,” says Falk. “Sometimes you hope the line goes slower so you can hear all.”

The only drawback to this is that the tales people tell might not be true--which brings us to lying in line, a popular plan for making the time fly by.

Andre Caraco, a publicist for Columbia Pictures, has to arrange public screenings as part of his job and has stood in more than his share of movie lines over the years. When he’s stuck in one, he’ll talk softly but carry a big shtick.

“I like to do accents and pretend I’m from another country,” he says. “I’ll pretend I’m on an Eastern European food line. It’s Prague, 1946. Or I’ll pretend to be deaf and start signing. It just helps take me away from the moment.”

For Case, standing in a movie or concert line “can be kind of like Halloween.”

“It’s fun standing there, making up stories, because you can be somebody different,” she says. “I do some role-playing. I sometimes try to get graphic in my discussions, trying to see if I offend people. Usually I do that if I’m waiting for an extended period and I know I won’t be seeing any of those people again.”

Generally, it’s a good thing you never see line mates again. When all else fails to pass the time, line standing can become a spectator sport. People-watching becomes people-mocking.

Maybe it’s the guy with the hellish haircut. Or the Beverly Hills matron with the new nose job. Or the dad with the three kids screaming for attention.

“Sometimes I’ll look at the other people in line,” says First, “and then I don’t feel so bad about myself.”