Sausage line for iPhone 4 in Paris

The queue for the iPhone 4. A common hall looms in the distance, hence the entrance to the Apple Store is not even visible.

On June 24, in the morning, a battle for the new iPhone 4 took place at the Carousel near the Louvre. From the classic Soviet queues for sausage in the province, this event was distinguished by the presence of security guards, who, to the best of their French democratic traditions, brought order and that they didn’t mutilate anyone ( at least it seemed so).
The rest was all:
senseless night and morning vigil;
crawling out loud with loud quacks;
wild pressing of the masses, popping and pushing, as in sex, but without any satisfaction;
fainting falls, etc.

Before the opening of the shopping center Carousel, all crowded on the street. Ours, Germans, French and Chinese - this is our inner circle.

In short, it was originally formed 2 stages, on pre-order and "on the fool." Those who managed to order through the site, passed faster, mere mortals at first somehow moved towards the goal, but by the middle of the day they were almost at a standstill. In the second half of the day (after 8-10 hours of standing), the “usual line” was made happy by the statement that only the pre-order phones remained and dispersed most of them. The rest of the persistent, about 50 people, were fenced with ribbons, where everyone stood until the evening without moving, watching the second line slowly move.
At about 6 o'clock in the evening, the suffering ones were reassured by the fact that some of the reserved phones remained, after which no one came, and after a couple of hours they gave 1 box to each shaking hands.

The approach to the store. Here, the “usual line-up” finally froze and did not move anymore.
')
By the way, people were carried around with water, sometimes coffee and even once served with croissants. But the social reality of this is not overshadowed by this.
At the same time, the mechanism of distribution of goods worked rather unreliably: sassy rear ones gradually squeezed forward non-sluggish, some entered the store without waiting in line (not behind the iPhone) and received unexpected happiness there, new faces appeared where everyone had long become one family.
But the most interesting thing is that the next day, the “reservists”, naturally, were no longer at all, and 20-30 people stood intelligently in one neat snake-like line before entering the Apple Store.

The next day, late in the morning, there was no excitement anymore. This is all who want to buy an iPhone 4.

And I would like to hope that in this way, after the “battle of baryg”, where, besides the Russians, the Germans (!) And the French (!!) suffered for the resale of the deficit, the usual fans of cool phones also got something.

By the way, the 24th of the iPhone 4 began to be sold literally everywhere, even in shops in the subway. But there he was with a contract from the operator. The sellers, as you will agree, asserted that the “sim-free” apparatus “Veriexextensiv” and did not believe that any sensible person needed it.