faire le poireau

To wait around for a long time

It conjures someone standing stock still and upright, like a leek left planted in the ground, while whoever they're waiting for takes their time.

J'ai fait le poireau pendant une heure devant le cinéma, il n'est jamais venu.

I stood around waiting for an hour outside the cinema, he never showed up.

Turns up in the mid 19th century. Delvau's 1866 slang dictionary already has 'planter son poireau' for waiting, and 'faire le poireau' followed a decade later, both playing on the leek's stiff, upright, unmoving shape in the ground.