I’m in a lift. There are seven others to keep me company – a man with big hair, a woman with an orange handbag, a woman with a small umbrella, an older balding man, an older non-balding man, my friend and a lady in a wheelchair. (Actually the lady in the wheelchair is not true, but in the interests of promoting diversity I felt it would make a positive contribution to my tale).
The buttons light up as we each rush to register our destination before the doors close. Rushing it turns out is unnecessary. The lift is a lethargic beast as the doors eventually grind shut. The accompanying noise would worry anyone but the most experienced of lift travellers. I notice there is a light around the number “1” and I suppress a smile. I play a game wondering which of my fellow passengers has caused this potential outrage and which of them will be the first to register their disapproval? As everyone knows, you don’t use a lift to travel just one floor! That’s the first and most important rule of the lift.
The culprit turned out to be the woman with the umbrella (not my made-up wheelchair user who would have been perfectly within her rights, of course). As she shuffled out, I didn’t catch who was the first to move. I could just about see the raised eyebrow underneath the big hair of the younger man, the two older men looked at each other in sympathy and the woman with the handbag sighed. I smiled once again but tried not to.
Next stop was floor two. As the doors opened, everyone looked at each other, waiting for movement. There wasn’t any. It was a hoax. Some joker had pressed the “2” button by accident. I blame the woman with the umbrella. We all did. I could not contain my laughter, which I clumsily smuggled into a cough and got some strange looks.
The man with the big hair departed us at the third stop. This is on the cusp of acceptable use of lifts. He could be forgiven. At this stage, the two older men were vying for control of the buttons. Both leapt to close the doors following ‘big hair’s’ exit. The balding man won, proving that his time was the most limited. Therefore, he was the most important among us.
And so, predictably (although you never really know with lifts) we arrived at the fourth floor. I stepped out, alongside my friend, who turned to me and said, “Why were you frowning”?”
“I wasn’t frowning.”
“Yes you were… and she saw!”
“Who?”
“The woman with the umbrella. She saw your disapproval.”
Sometimes I wish I had a better grasp of my facial expressions.
October 16, 2010 at 4:25 pm
Ah, elevators. I’m always a little worried when I enter one, because of all the stories of people getting stuck for hours or days.
But you do travel one floor in a two-floor building.
October 16, 2010 at 5:54 pm
Never before has a simple lift journey been so epic.
P.S. When nobody exited on the second floor yet you couldn’t help but go into a fit of laughter you say you got a lot of funny looks. It is no surprise to me because if I saw that the lift had stopped on a floor with no one exiting the lift yet there was a chap there laughing his head off then I would immediately suspect that it was indeed he that had pressed that button forcing the unnecessary floor visit, even if there were also a teenage hoodie or a red guy with a goatie, a trident and two horns on his head in there.
Thus it would be your fault that all our precious time was wasted for that few extra seconds that could be the difference between the ambulance man saving the heart attack victim’s life and the man from saving his job by coming in on time. It would be at this point that I would have no choice but to call the lift police and tell them that we had caught another lift criminal who could be put into the lift jail with all the other lift criminals, like the ones who deliberately press the emergency button or who stand in the way of the doors so that they never close.