The pharmacy privacy line

Roughly six feet back from the pharmacy counter, running parallel to it for the width of the queue, the privacy line is usually rendered in yellow tape, sometimes in a strip of contrasting floor tile, occasionally in a taped down paper sign reading please wait here that has drifted from its original position and now marks nothing in particular. Its function is to hold the next customer back far enough that a conversation about symptoms, insurance, or a controlled substance cannot be overheard by the person immediately behind them, a small architecture of discretion built entirely from suggestion rather than enforcement. Compliance varies by store, by hour, and by the queue's own mood: a busy Monday morning produces near total observance, everyone standing exactly on or behind the mark, while a slow Wednesday afternoon sees the line ignored entirely, the queue collapsing forward into a loose cluster a few feet from the counter, close enough to hear everything. No employee stands guard over it. No sign explains what happens to those who cross it, because nothing does; the only enforcement is a raised eyebrow from pharmacy staff or the mild self-consciousness of the customer who realizes, mid sentence, that they can hear the person ahead discussing a refill. The tape itself wears unevenly along its length, most worn at the end nearest the door, where feet turn to leave rather than stopping cleanly.

Arthur Pell