Queue Management

You've had this experience -- you go into a grocery store or a pharmacy or Costco (or any retail outlet with multiple cash registers) and try to choose the shortest line. Then one of the customers in front of you turns out to have an expired credit card, or they forgot to get Metamucil, or they decide to wait until everything is rung up and bagged before even beginning to search for their checkbook. Doesn't it seem like forming one line to wait for the next available cashier would be the smartest way to manage the queue? I always have. And, it turns out, we're right.