Living in New York I have developed great appreciation for long lines. Only rarely have I been disappointed after waiting (I’m looking at you, Matrix 2 & 3) and have found that if you bring a cheery attitude to the queue, that it becomes an enjoyable part of the overall experience. I ate the best breakfast of my life when, across the street from the Tokyo fish market, I chose the Sushi Shop with the longest line. I’ll wait out any Shake Shack location with a smile.

My family stood in one of those long lines at the Bronx Botanical Gardens this weekend. We queued up for the Holiday Train Show outside the main entrance under a big tent. It was cool so we were comforatable in our winter jackets. They even gave us tickets and broke us down by entrance times. Scattered around the tent were information placards describing what we were about to see. We learned that all of the building models are made entirely of plant parts. As far as lines go, I was impressed.

When our time arrived, we walked into the main entrance. But instead of entering directly into the exhibit, we came upon a large vestibule. There were a couple of spectacular models of a mansion and an air port, but they were impossible to access because of the chaotic mob of people. We only had to navigate a 50-foot curve around a fountain to get into the exhibit, but the mob had to funnel to single file while standing still. Inside the greenhouse, it’s 80 degrees.

All around us people were disintegrating. A old White woman pushing a wheelchair barked, “You people need to move!” The young Black father directly ahead of her asked her pointedly if she wanted to run over his two young kids. She yelled back that she didn’t run over his kids so he shouldn’t take offense. He kept his cool, though he was not giving her the last word on the matter. I noted to the woman that neither the father nor the kids, nor anyone else in the vestibule could move anywhere and that they would move when they could. It didn’t help. She was lost in the semantics of the argument and the father, who I thought was justified to take offense in the first place, let it drop and moved away from the wheelchair when he could.

We were already single file out in the tent! Why on earth they allow hell-on-earth to take shape inside the vestibule, I’ll never understand, but armed with the proper cheery attitude we shed our jackets and shuffled our feet occasionally until we finally tumbled to the base of the funnel.

The models of the buildings and bridges were incredible, but I expected the trains themselves to be cooler and omnipresent. The buildings require a lot of scrutiny to figure out which plant parts comprise the structures, but when two kids are bolting from train to train, scrutiny is not an option.

Cheery had wilted to ho-hum in the heat, but then, just after the midway point, I heard Jude shout out, “Yankee Stadium!”

Long live the long line.