Ninety minutes. That’s how long we stood in the queue for a ride that lasts approximately three minutes, one of which is spent going “wait, is this it? Is it over?” In that ninety minutes, my brain went to some truly unhinged places. I’m sharing them here as a public service, so you know you’re not alone.

Minute 1-15: Denial

“This isn’t so bad.” “The line is moving.” “We’ll be through in twenty minutes, tops.” Reader, we were not through in twenty minutes. We were not through in fifty minutes. I had, at this point, already made up a whole backstory for the family in front of us based entirely on their matching fanny packs.

Minute 16-40: Deep Philosophical Spiraling

Somewhere around minute twenty-five, I started wondering if time actually moves slower inside a switchback queue, like some kind of Disney-specific relativity. By minute thirty, I had fully planned out what I’d say in a TED talk titled “Queueing: Humanity’s Last Shared Ritual.” By minute forty, I’d convinced myself the queue theming was actually a metaphor for the human condition. It was not. It was just a hallway with fake rocks.

Minute 41-70: Bargaining With My Children

This is the phase where “I Spy” becomes a hostage negotiation, snacks get rationed like we’re preparing for a siege, and I promise my youngest literally anything — a churro, a stuffed animal, my own kidney — if she stops asking “how much longer” every ninety seconds. I lost track of how many promises I made. I intend to keep none of them.

Minute 71-89: Full Delirium

By this point I’d made unofficial eye-contact friendships with three separate strangers, developed strong opinions about the queue’s air conditioning output, and started narrating our lives like a nature documentary just to stay sane. “And here, deep in the queue biome, the exhausted parent forages for the last remaining goldfish cracker.”

Minute 90: The Ride

We finally boarded. The ride lasted approximately three minutes. My youngest immediately said “let’s go again!” I said nothing. I simply stared into the middle distance, already dreading the next queue, already planning my next TED talk.

Queue Survival Tips We Learned the Hard Way

• Bring a mental game you can play solo, because “I Spy” only lasts about fifteen minutes before someone accuses someone else of cheating.
• Pack more snacks than you think you need, then pack a few more, because queue hunger multiplies exponentially with wait time.
• Making up backstories for strangers around you is free entertainment and surprisingly effective at killing twenty minutes.
• Accept early that the posted wait time is more of a gentle suggestion than an actual fact.

Why We Keep Doing This to Ourselves

Here’s the thing: despite the delirium, the bargaining, and the TED talk I will never actually give, we do it again the very next day. There’s something almost bonding about surviving a queue together as a family, emerging on the other side slightly unhinged but united. Or maybe we’ve just all lost our minds a little in the Florida heat. Probably both.

What do you think about while waiting in line? Confess your queue thoughts in the comments — we won’t judge, we’ve been there.