Great Open Spaces

In a town so big there remains one place to go where you can get total quiet regardless of what may be going on in the outside world, and that place my friends, is an elevator. I live on the 16th floor of a 26 story apartment complex, and it continues to amaze me how quickly people will stop everything they are doing to not talk in an elevator. Maybe its because in actuality you are in a lit closet dropping hundreds of feet with total strangers, being kept alive only by your faith in an elaborate pulley system. Yes, a pulley system, for those of us public school kids that would fall under the category of simple machine. For those of you private school kids, let me borrow some money.

Everyday I board the elevator and plummet 160 feet to the ground floor with total strangers of various backgrounds, all of us eager to not speak, or make eye contact. Come to think of it, elevators might be the most anti-social facet of American culture. Here we stand doing our best to look at the ground and at the random mirror thats in all elevators, note, its only there to make it look bigger. Though lately I have my suspicions that there may be a camera on the other side, but maybe that's a little paranoia. Anyway, here we fall, quietly and staring at the ground, when if you think about it, perhaps we should be a tad more jovial, considering what's at stake. I mean, if the cable, from the aforementioned elaborate pulley was to not do its job, speaking of which, what is the active verb for what a pulley does? Would it be pulleying, pulleyaing maybe ? sorry, okay so if the pulley were to not pullify and we all fell to our demise, how silly would it be to go out in silence. At least we could have the decency to shriek and carry on with our new best friends.

Which is why I've been making it my sole purpose to be the most jovial person ever on an elevator, I been starting with a ritual of shaking everyones hand, pressing the button for their floor, whistling songs, quoting shakespeare, handing out moist towelettes, (side note I spelled towelette right on the first try no red underline ) whatever it takes to get the ice broken, mind you this has led to my photo being plastered all over the apartment offering a ransom for my bounty. Okay so perhaps I made that up, not the part about the spelling towelette right on the first try though. Anyway the elevator is a trip I actually do look forward to riding it with strangers and making them slightly nervous by standing juuust a little too close, not close enough that i'll get tazed, but close enough that I can read the "is this guy serious" look on their face.

Oh the simplicities that make me smile