This may get long, bear with!
A short while ago on my way home from work, I stopped in at my local CoOp for a few bits for tea. The queue was really long, and they had 2 cashiers on, but had just called for a third.
The third cashier came and set up at the till right next to where I was standing. As she was setting up I hung back and was trying to catch the eyes of people in the queue who were further up. I managed to signal to 3 women in front of me by nodding my head towards the till. They all smiled and shook their heads. The bloke further up the queue never looked in my direction.
The cashier was now ready and no one had moved. I hovered and looked towards the queue again and everyone was minding their own business, perhaps because if anyone else had crossed to the till they would have virtually had to shove past me. So as the cashier started trying to flag people over, I stepped forward.
Obviously the bloke had seen the cashier wave and turned at that point. So all he saw was the woman at the end of the queue step forward. He was behind me in a second (crossing in front of the 3 other women), loudly saying "It's horribly rude when people push in like that!"
I stepped back and in an equally loud voice said "I'm sorry, I stepped forward because no one else had, but by all means go ahead of me!" Probably a little passive aggressive, but I had had every intention of not queue jumping.
He made a big song and dance of being nice to the cashier, "Thanks darling, you're a treasure!" With pointed looks over his shoulder at me to show I was not. When he did that I smiled and winked at him.
Whilst he was paying, I had hung back again and once again was offering for the other 3 women to go in front, all said no again.
So, was I horribly rude and should I have absolutely refused to go in front of anyone? I've had plenty of people bulldoze me out of the way in the same situation before, but never said anything.