Calm Down & Ride On Up
If you were on your way to the airport, I could understand your frustration, sir.
Last night 1 of 4 of our elevators were working properly in my condo building. You would have thought the entire building was watching a real time video of a nuclear missile shooting toward our individual units.
I noticed it when I left the gym and waited around 5 minutes for the normally 30 second wait. I was actually enjoying the down time to get my breath back after an elliptical workout where I decided to bump up the resistance by about 7. Still not sure why I did that.
I finally made it up to 21, and Neighbor Erin and I decided to go for a walk. So off we went back to the elevator, wherein we waited 7 minutes. Again, a little crazy but also it’s First World Problems so whatever. Also there are stairs and we obviously opted out of that.
On our way down, we stopped at 19, 18, 16, 13, 10, 9, 7, 4, 3, and finally L.
The entire ride down, every single person that stepped onto the elevator exclaimed, “WHAT is going ON?! I’ve been waiting for 15 minutes! This is RIDICULOUS!”
Most of us stood there and smiled, not caring to get into it with neighbors who we don’t know and probably won’t see again. Then I decided to take it as an opportunity to meet some potentially fun people.
“So, where’s everybody from?” I asked. Several people laughed, one guy stared at his phone, and another one announced that she had a headache. I then decided my idea was better as an idea.
Erin and I got down to L, went for our walk, and came back to find 13 people in line to get on the 1 elevator that was working. People were in the lobby yelling to Concierge, “WHAT is WRONG with the elevators? They’re not WORKING!”
“Yes, we know. They are working on them,” the Concierge team responded in the nicest way possible.
“HOW MUCH LONGER?” someone demanded.
We all piled onto the one elevator, and stopped on 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 10, 13, 15, 18, 19, 20, and finally 21. The guy who got off on 20 had shoved his way into the middle with a cart holding a giant cooler box back on 15. When the door opened on 15 and he realized there was not actually enough room for him, he said, “I have to get in here I’ve been waiting for 20 minutes.”
So he shoved his way into the middle, plowing through most of us, and naturally the next few stops were people in the back corner that needed to get off and had to climb over the cooler.
When everyone had vacated and it was just the 3 of us, Erin asked him if that was a cooler. Now, Erin is not normally one to make conversations with strangers, so I assumed she either thought he was cute or a serial killer.
Once he got off and it was just us, she said, “Every time I see him he has a cooler. I think it’s for bodies.”
Great, I thought. This is a real life episode of Only Murders In The Building!
We got back to our floor and said our goodbyes, and I kept checking our Facebook page for reports of screams, slamming cooler doors, and elevator rants.
