It’s my elevator

When faced with the prospect of ascending a building, I usually prefer the stairs to the elevator. This is in large part because I, more than most Americans, realize that exercise is good whenever and wherever you can get it, not just when it is provided by a treadmill or through an instructional video. But now that I live all on the 11th floor, I find to my dismay that taking the stairs is altogether impractical, especially if I want my knees to last another decade or so.

Last year, I was on the 7th floor –- high enough that I felt justified in taking the elevator but low enough that the option of taking the stairs was ever-present. Moreover, since most of the residents in that building didn’t use the elevator for the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd floors, the maximum number of stops I would ever have to endure during any elevator trip was four, a perfectly acceptable amount. If ever the trip was too slow for my tastes, I could always hop off on the 5th or 6th floor and walk up the stairs the rest of the way.

Traveling by elevator here in Mercer –- a more heavily populated building than D'Agostino –- inevitably results in riding with people who live on almost every floor between the ground level and my own. While I'm normally a very calm, even-tempered person, this can be highly aggravating.

When I am blessed with the fortune of stopping at 8 floors or heaven forbid 9 because of the absolute slug of a human being who is unwilling to walk up to the 2nd floor, a strange and unfamiliar darkness falls over me as the trip progresses. With each stop I grow more angry and impatient. At first I didn't fully understand what was happening, but then I realized that I am experiencing the elevator-equivalent of road rage. This palpable and destructive force could, if the right pieces were in play –- a long day, an 80-page reading assignment, the corner bodega closing before I could get dinner, and an overly talkative elevator occupant –- culminate in a brutal and savage beating. Thankfully, the animosity has thus far led to little more than obscenities muttered under the breath and heavy sighs at each stop.

Even more bizarre than my violent tendencies, though, is this phenomenon: when I am the sole person in the elevator, I sometimes develop an attachment to the device, a sense of ownership justified by nothing but my being in there alone. Whenever someone enters the elevator, I look at them as if they’ve just soiled my couch with dirty cowboy boots. How dare you! This elevator is mine – and has been since I got on 30 seconds ago! Can’t you see my floor, not yours, is already lit, and I had my hand on the ‘Close Door’ button as you approached?

If you haven’t experienced this (I’m sure some of you have but won’t admit to it), it's similar to how you would feel if you were forced to pick up and drop off an unwanted hitchhiker every time you were on your way home from work (minus the worry that you might be slaughtered en route, of course) .

For those without cars, it can also be analogized to a situation such as the following: you and a friend are the only people in a movie theater, looking forward to watching whatever flick you’ve come to see without distractions, relaxed and as comfortable as you might be in your own living room, and, suddenly, right after the previews end and just before the movie is about to start, another group of people saunters in. Regardless of whether they are loud and obnoxious or well-behaved (the latter is unlikely in this day and age), their intrusion nevertheless interrupts and – most of the time – ruins your experience.

So, the next time you get on an elevator and someone is standing there, arms crossed with a disapproving look on his or her face, quickly step off and wait for your own. It’s the right thing to do – and the only way to avoid ending up the subject of a newspaper headline that reads: “One Too Many Stops: Elevator Rage Claims Victim.”