Thursday, August 17, 2006
Elevator
My wife likes to suggest to me what to write about in my blog. Her suggestions are good, don't get me wrong, but I would not call them BLOG good. For example, there is a guy that is on the Ten O'clock news that does these get your money back, don't get scammed reports. His name is Bill Gephart. We get a kick out of him and laugh at him and stuff and Daisy thinks I should write about this gentleman. We laugh at him but I don't think it translates to a funny or interesting blog idea. Neither do elevators though but that won't stop me here. So I am in San Diego all last week at a conference and I was on the 14th floor and I found myself praying every time I got on an elevator that I would be alone. I think elevators are the most awkward social setting there is. You have to face a certain direction and if you don't say hello right away when you get on, then the silence is so awkward it's painful. The elevators at this hotel were very slow too. I am just not the type of person that makes a point to greet people when they get on an elevator. I should, right away I should say, "good morning" or whatever time of day it is and then "have a good one" when you leave. I am kind of against "have a good one" fundamentally, but practically it works every time so I use it and I am not going to apologize for that. But then you don't really say "Good Afternoon" to someone in an elevator or "Good Evening", you will sound like you work for the hotel. So then I would say something like "welcome"? Welcome to the elevator? I guess it is not that hard to be friendly, or it should not be this hard, but in my core I just like to be left alone and to leave others alone, a bit of a recluse if you will. You know what else is weird, I was on the "14th" floor yet there was no "13th" floor in the hotel so technically.... Are there really people that refuse to stay on a floor because it starts with a 13? I cannot believe that a zillion dollar hotel has catered so much to the superstitious like that. That is really offensive to us non-superstitious or the pro-13ers.
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6 comments:
If I were to say "hello" or any kind of greeting to people in NY elevators, I would get mace sprayed in my face. Everyone just pretends like everyone else doesnt exist, elevator, subway, walking down the street, no one else exists. You should try that.
Instead of saying "Welcome" or "Good Evening"--maybe next time you could try
saying "Get Gephardt." Then you'd have fourteen (thirteen) floors to talk
about "What your kids don't know about school lunch" or "The Ford Recall
Scandal."
- Sadie
Josh, that makes me feel better. Maybe there is nothing wrong with just wanting to look at the floor of an elevator for 13 floors while I am in there with a total stranger in a 5 X 5 box suspended 100s of feet in the air by an old cable. I have seen Die Hard, I know what can happen on an elevator. But then there are always those friendly people that won't stop talking, they say, how are you doing and good bye and stuff like that. Man, I hate them so much.
One of my favorite memories, I was with my friend, Weston (you don't know him) and we were on the elevator in the Cliff lodge at Snowbird and it was pretty crowded, but everyone was quiet, and about 3 seconds after the elevator door closed Weston says: "Hi." to noone and noone responded.
Another favorite elevator memory:
My friend, Matthew Faulconer had acne in High School, and he schemed this whole scene. Another friend, Todd Dalley, and I got on the BYU library elevator with some BYU female student on the ground floor. Then on another floor, Matthew got on (so it didn't look like we were together), and as soon as the elevator door closed, Todd and I started saying things like:
"Dude, use claritin."
"Check out Mr. Zitso!"
"Hey pizza face, I'm talking to you!"
And Matthew didn't respond, but just looked kind of sad like and the uncomfortable BYU student almost started crying.
She almost started crying with laughter. Maybe Elevators don't suck, maybe they can be used to our advantage. Take that awkward social moment and give it a twisted tweaking. I like the cut of your jib Ben.
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