Elevator Etiquette

Having recently rejoined the HighRise Horde I once again have the luxury of shooting all the way to the top of the building via elevator each morning. The elevator means I don’t have to trudge up 17 flights of stairs, so color me pro-elevator. If I had to climb 17 flights of stairs to get to work I’d probably just quit.

Unfortunately, it appears my elevator etiquette is a bit rusty. Each morning I’m finding it hard to totally ignore the fact that I’m sharing 16 square feet of floor space with 5 strangers and, as we all know, that is the key to successfully navigating a highrise – pretending no one exists but you.

I’ve made all sorts of mistakes lately like looking people dead in the eye, hitting the wrong button and (blatantly) getting off on the wrong floor. All big no-nos. Just last week I got off on 16 by mistake (I was thinking about dinosaurs), then back on to go up to 17 and everybody in the elevator audibly sighed when I hit the button. Sorry to waste your 12 seconds, buttholes.

Give me a break.

I may make the occasional faux-pas, but I’m never just plain elevator-rude. I don’t, for instance, blatantly pick my nose (poorly executed “roundabout” between floors 12 and 14 by a lady in a green jacket on Tuesday). Lady - no matter how fast you cram your finger in your nose and back out again – it still counts! And the question remains: what do you do with a booger so horrible that couldn’t wait 38 seconds? I definitely don’t want it.

I also don’t wink and change into gym shorts between floors either (thanks for that Mr. Tall Asian Guy in basketball shoes) for a split second I thought you were going to try and plunder my carnal treasures. Thanks for not. Hearing the totally unprovoked stranger behind you drop his pants on an elevator is just plain unsettling.  If you don’t have enough alone time built into your day to change your pants solo: join the priesthood and get the hell out of my elevator.

My personal favorite is the loud phone talker who got on with me; then proceeded to loudly coordinate drinks with her girlfriend all the way to the ground floor, hang up, loudly announce “Ok. I’m that girl. I know it’s so rude to talk in an elevator” and stomp off.  By the time she waddled out of the elevator I was the one who needed a drink.

Let me point out that saying something is rude while you’re doing it actually doesn’t make it less rude - it just proves that you’re an insufferable bunghole and I hope a big eagle swoops down and eats you.

Interesting stuff, I know; but what I really want to talk about is this: the door-close-button. IT DOESN’T CLOSE THE @#$#@$ DOOR.

I’m 31 years old and in that entire time I have never, not one time, period, ever seen the door-close-button work and yet, as soon as someone pops through the not-yet-fully-opened door, there is instantly a logjam of grimy pointer fingers miserably scrabbling to get that button pushed.

WHY?!?!?!? Is there a place in the world where the hurry-up-and-close-the-door button works and everybody else in the world has been there but me??? Wait. Am I dead? Is this Hell? I need to go to that happy place because the unwavering faith which led me to unyieldingly engage that button for the first 28 years of my life nearly drove me mad. My New Years’ resolution in 2008 was to never push that Devil-spawned button again and by god I haven’t.

But it kills me.