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Going up: an elevator to awkward interaction

Eliza Calvin
UML Student

Imagine a metal box hurtling through the air in which you are trapped, surrounded by strangers. It is not a stretch, from that perspective, to see how my phobia of flying has translated into a fear of the O’Leary elevators.

I could walk, and have, the many flights of stairs leading to the fifth floor on which I have two classes. But, as with most things, convenience trumps all.
There are always the telltale signs of those brave comrades who opted for stairs over elevator: the huffing and puffing, shirts soaked through from sweat, the familiar odor of perspiration that proudly proclaims, “Yeah, I took the stairs.”

There’s a certain nostalgia to staircases. After all, they have been around for thousands of years. Elevators as we know them have been around for hundreds.
They mark the advent of a newer, happier age, an age in which technology propels us from one floor to the next by a single push of a button. Another beautiful advancement that encourages our insatiable laziness.

So, I choose the elevator. With all its claustrophobia and germs and forced conversation, I choose the elevator.

I think we can all agree on the worst type of elevator passenger: The One-Floor-Upper. He or she enters the elevator on the first floor and alights the button for the mezzanine.

That’s one floor up. I would venture that one exerts about as much energy pressing the “M” button as it takes to walk up the single flight of stairs to the mezzanine.
Then there’s the Squeezer-In. The elevator arrives, its doors part, and inside is a group of humans so tightly-packed, breathing is no longer an option, and probably are filling the thing past weight capacity. “With God as my witness,” thinks the Squeezer-In, “I will fit in this elevator!”

And they do. They always do.

There is the occasional blissful moment where one finds oneself alone in the elevator. “Yes,” one thinks, “privacy for five floors in this quaint steel cage.”

Then, as the doors are closing, a single person finagles their way in at the last possible moment: the Scooter-In. You ride in awkward silence for a floor, or three, unless one individual feels compelled to make small talk.

Fact: Scooters-In are usually suffering from some kind of explosive cold or influenza.

Worst of all, there is no cell phone service in that tiny metal box. One can pretend to be distracted by their phone, attempting in vain to text or refresh Facebook. The jig is up: your fellow elevator-commuters know you are looking for a logical reason to ignore them. Luckily, we seem to share an unspoken apathy on the matter.
Despite all this, I will forgo the stairs and continue on my elevator journey.

I will risk the bajillion germs undoubtedly living and thriving on every single button.

I will remain composed as backpacks nearly concuss me in the chaos of adding yet another passenger to the fray.

Because in the realm of elevation, laziness always prevails.