February 22, 2005

Ups and Downs

Four months in an elevator-obsessed city qualify as sufficient experience for writing a post on elevator etiquette. So here goes:

1. The tiny button outside the elevator is meant for pressing repeatedly. Its main purpose is not to invoke the elevator’s spirit to come visit you, but to give you a cool temporary thumb tattoo in this shape: <>

2. The elevator has two doors: the inside door and the outside door. The elevator will stop in its tracks if someone opens the outside door on any floor. Therefore, when you are standing near the elevator door with nothing to do, you can pass time by repeatedly opening and shutting the door. People in the elevator will have the time of their lives, and their lunch will get the opportunity to say hello to their breakfast in their intestines.

3. When you get off the elevator, you open both the doors yourself. However, since your ass is so obviously on fire and the fire extinguisher is so obviously on this very floor, you do not need to close the door behind you. The crazy woman holding two encyclopaedias in her arms can do it easily, and continue her upward or downward journey. After all, she wears her chaddi over her pants.

4. If any of the doors of the elevator are open, the elevator sings a song. Not in the nightingale kind of way, but in the tonsillitis-affected jackal kind of way. Since this is your favourite kind of music, you should hold the door open and have long conversations with your friends before deciding whether you want to disembark on this floor or continue your journey.

5. If you are standing in the farthest-most-est corner of the elevator, you should run over everyone else and still be the first one to get out. (I am ashamed to say I do this all the time, perhaps out of some subliminal urge to be first.)

6. If you are a watchman, and you see a crazy woman holding two encyclopaedias in her arms trying to close a derailed elevator door, you should turn your eyes back to the Marathi crossword in the newspaper. Later, you can giggle about her unique style of dressing.

13 comments:

Layfield said...

Lol, that was funny.

First Rain said...

*Silent laughter erupts in my head*
Heee heee heee .... btw Why the Supergirl look?
And I couldn't help asking - did the elevator have a glass ceiling too?

Anonymous said...

I've resorted to walking up the steps... to the fourth floor. Unless there is a girl with me, in which case a friendly neighbor help us stay in the lift longer than necessary--where the Kamal Hasan song helps me pull a trick or two. :D

- Heretic

Anonymous said...

Love the new look.

Anonymous said...

I never noticed either!!

--Apple

Anonymous said...

Elevator-obsessed? Which city are you in?

Anita

Ink Spill said...

The security guard will not climb up two floors, he'll take the lift. The watchman will not climb ONE floor, he'll take the left. The supermart won't deliver stuff during a power cut. It's rare to find people who have climbed more than twenty steps in this city!

Ink Spill said...

Pardon all the typos. I'm very tired from having climbed 220 steps in the last hour.

anumita said...

Have you heard of elevators that don't have any buttons inside? You look at the floor indicator button before getting in. And get out at the floor you are deposited inspite of sometimes wanting to get out on some other floor.
That's the cold steel box I get into everyday coming to work!

Hornswoggler said...

I feel like singing that song (with minor changes and Hrithik type shoulder movement)...

Tu aisi kyun hain? Tu aisi kyun hai...
Tu aisi kyun hain? Tu aisi kyun hai...

Ink Spill said...

@ Rash: you have touched a raw nerve!
Karna hai kya mujhko yeh maine kab hai jaana
Lagta hai gaaongi zindagi bhar bas yeh gaana
Hoga jaane mera ab kya o ho ho, koi to bataye mujhe
Gadbad hai yeh sab jya o ho ho, koi samjhaye mujhe
Jaane ab mera hona kya hai o ho, kya main hoon jaisi bas waisi rahoongi?

Anonymous said...

I know you meant Super(wo)man( but she wears her chaddi over her pants made a very wierd visual...aaargh!

Anonymous said...

Whoops, I was just drinking a glass of water and almost choked laughing hysterically over your post :D

Double doors, manual doors, hyena music....see thats why I prefer the modern silent smooth automatic lifts :)