Elevators, Angst, and Our Ongoing Downfall

Have you heard of Jester Center, the dormitory at the University of Texas with a capacity of nearly three thousand? I lived in it for two years, one on the eighth floor and one on the tenth floor. Whenever possible, I took the stairs. Elevators and people do not mix, which is an unfortunate design flaw—devices meant to transfer us safely from territory to territory in the turf wars of our daily lives also point out how uncomfortable with other people most of us are.

I have to take the elevator several times a day. In my office building, you can take the stairs only in the event of a fire drill. Therefore, I propose some rules:

Rule Number One. Don’t get mad if someone is looking at you. With so little space, you’re probably looking back.

Rule Number Two. Don’t comment on other people's hangdog expressions, even if you’re trying to cheer them up. You’ll only cheer them down, and they may end up writing about you for everyone to see.

There should be other rules, sure—move to the back, compress all of your belongings into yourself, resist commenting on how quiet everyone is—but the above two are the most important.

I was making my afternoon coffee run a couple of days ago, and a woman walked into the elevator and said to me, “Don’t be so grim.” I must give her some points on originality here, for this statement is at least a variation on the “Smile—it can’t be that bad” jibe that has to be my biggest pet peeve. Every time I hear it I want to respond, “What if it is? What if it is exactly, precisely that bad? Oh, God, why, why? Don’t run away…hold me, please hold me!”

Of course, I never say that. Instead, I try to self-deprecate my way out of the conversation.

For instance, my reply to the woman on the elevator was, “This is just my natural expression.”

“You look like your dog just died,” she said.

Nice. Go ahead. Bring my dead dog into it. It’s not enough to berate me. You need an animal to ridicule as well.

Maybe I was thinking about something sad; maybe not. I might have been thinking about Spider-Man, or trying to remember how to conjugate the future tense in Italian, or pondering the opening of the book I was bringing on my coffee break, Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (which, in fact, does include a dead dog, so maybe the woman was on target in her own way). At any rate, I wasn’t thinking about any of that any more; instead, I was thinking about my apparently preternaturally morose mug.

Thus, Rule Number Two.

And the truth is, I already know that my expression in repose is probably less than cheery. The elevator doors in my office building are mirrored. (Decorative public mirrors—another pet peeve. Stupid Limited.) Now and then, the doors of my elevator open and I catch a glimpse of a face in the elevator across the hall. The hell you looking at, you grumpy yutz? I think, and then realize that it’s my face in the mirrored door.

So I understand where the breakers of Rule Number Two are coming from. That’s why I propose Rule Number One. I need to work on tempering my reactions to the reactions of everybody else.

But come on. Let’s drop the commands to smile. It’s just basic manners. If we must be forced into the kind of closeness generally reserved for the people who love us, warts and all, we should have the courtesy to stare at the floor and pretend that we’re all flawless.