Don’t We Learn How To Queue Properly In Kindergarten?

My native language is Portuguese, but I do speak English fairly well. My mom, however, can only speak Portuguese. Both of us go on a trip to London and, of course, I am always the only one doing all the talk for both of us.

We bought some “special cards” that grant us “free” entrance to a great variety of tourist attractions; it’s not exactly free, as we paid quite the sum for these cards, but it’s still cheaper than paying for every single attraction we visit.

We’re visiting an attraction that is very popular, so there is quite a queue. There is a Londoner lady in front of me. After a while, the lady steps out of the queue to look at some maps along our way. It isn’t like “one look to the side and then back to the queue.” No, she starts reading the freaking map while the queue advances. So, I take that as my cue to advance, too.

A few minutes later, when she finally notices that the queue has gone on without her, she locates my mother and me and proceeds to yell at us about how we cut her place in the queue.

Lady: “There’s a queue here! A line!”

Me: “Well, you stepped aside, so we just went on ahead.”

My mother asks me, in Portuguese, what is happening, and I tell her. The lady notices that we are not English speakers.

Lady: “Oh, you’re Spanish. There. Is. A. Queue. Line. Here.”

She pauses between every single word, despite the fact that I’ve been speaking English to her.

Me: “I know that! But you stepped aside, so…”

Then, suddenly…

Attraction Worker: “All the visitors holding the [special card], please come this way to the preferential queue!”

I prompt my mom to get her card, and the lady, seeing we both have the [special card], can’t help but say:

Lady: “You’re being called that way.”

Me: “Yes, I know. Excuse me, I’m going in first!”