Every thought you’ll have while waiting in line for the Atrium’s Chick-fil-A

Everyone knows what it’s like to have that mid-afternoon hunger. All you want is to get your hands on a Chick-fil-A sandwich and a warm box of fries, so you rush over to the atrium as soon as your professor shuts his laptop. However, much to your dismay, as soon as you enter the atrium, red cheeked and flustered, you are stopped in your tracks by an enormous line.

You stretch your neck around to see students, just like you, waiting for that beautiful, delicious sandwich. You contemplate ditching the line for a salad, but the aroma is to tempting, so you settle in and wait.

Oh, the atrium. How I love your weird chairs attached to the table, your odd smells and most of all your line for Chick-fil-A. There is nothing a starving, broke and busy college student would rather do than stand in line for 20 minutes waiting for a chicken sandwich.

We all stand huddled in the most inconvenient place in the whole building and try to keep our cool as the 100th girl wearing a backpack two times her size squeezes her way through us to get a Diet Coke, hitting us all in the gut with her bag as she does so. It truly is an amazing experience.

The first five minutes

The first five minutes seem to fly by. We can smell the glorious smell of CFA fries as we make small talk to distract ourselves from our grumbling stomachs. However, once five minutes have passed, the tables turn. It is every man for themselves out there. It is a cut throat, eat or be eaten situation and you have to do whatever it takes to get that 8-count nugget box.

People start trying to cut in front of you, but you have to stand your ground. You watch as the weaklings start to drop one by one and make their way over to the salads and wraps station. As time ticks on, you start to wonder if you should give up and grab a smoothie, but then you see the line start to inch forward and you get a second wind of hope.

The front of the line

Finally, you are at the front of the line. You swiftly pick up your chicken sandwich, stuff a few Chick-fil-A sauces in your bag and hurry to grab your fries – and then you see it. The rack where there should be boxes and boxes of delicious, golden brown fries is empty.

You look around and try to make sense of the situation. Your head feels like it’s spinning and your legs grow heavy. You feel your heart sinking to your chest and just as you’re about to give up, just when you think you can’t do it anymore you hear, “My pleasure!” You turn around and see a fresh batch of fries. You let out a sigh of relief as you feel the warmth of the box in your hands and then hastily stuff it into your brown paper bag.

The cash register

All of your food is being thrown around as you nearly sprint to the cash register. Your knuckles are white from how hard you’re gripping that valuable paper bag and you bounce up and down on your tip toes as you wait in line to pay.

Eventually, you make it to the front and you promptly list off your order. The lady at the cash register has a look of apathy worse than yours during an 8:30am lecture. Once your card is finally swiped, you set out to find a table amongst the hoards of people.

The last step

You wait patiently for a guy stumbling around with his skateboard to clear a spot for you at a table, and you sit down to give your legs a much needed rest. Finally, you are sitting in a perfect booth towards the back munching on your fries and realizing how worth the wait it really was and how excited you are to do the same thing tomorrow.