"Do you mind?.. He likes pushing the button." Sex and the City's Miranda is annoyed by the Sunday influx of kids at her gym, and she does mind when a little boy pushes all the buttons causing the elevator to stop at every floor.
Did I like pressing the elevator button when I was a kid? Oh yeah. Oh yeah - I still love it. Because when you're an immigrant kid coming from a struggling lower-class community, where functioning elevators are not at the top of the government's to-do list, the shiny noise-less elevators of suburban America are especially thrilling.
For one, back home every ride in an elevator is spent in a mental battle, trying to push back all those horror stories you've heard of people getting stuck. ...I had a bad feeling as I walked in...half way up I heard a strange noise...suddenly the light went off and everything stopped...it took me five minutes of fumbling in the dark to find the emergency button...and another two hours until someone came to pry the elevator open... So the stories go. And when you're halfway through your ride, you can swear you're hearing a weird noise and the lights are flickering and - the end is near! The thing is they never actually fix the elevators either. They come to pry the one stuck out (the "stuck-er", the "stuck-y"?), and then they kick the elevator back into its normal barely functioning condition. Literally - kick it back to condition. And that's the end of the story! There's no follow up, no troubleshooting, no service call placed. Psch! - what is this - suburban America?
Alright, you don't get stuck every time, of course. But let's talk about the buttons. Do you know what it takes for a little kid to press the button of an ancient overworked elevator that wasn't built up to any standards to begin with? It takes Herculean strength, that's what. Those buttons don't have touch censors, they don't light up when you press them, and they altogether refuse to accept your request, until you leverage your weight against the opposite wall and give it the push of your life. And even when they don't need be pushed overly hard, sometimes they need to be pushed a little down or a little to the right, or in some other sort of skilled zig-zag movement.
And finally, it's not infrequent to come across an elevator where the writing on the buttons has long since wiped off. And while you might think it's easy enough to count five buttons up to get to the fifth floor, there might be a lower basement level, there might be a couple, there might be simply unused buttons that were never removed and now look just like the rest of them, or the buttons might start with the top floors on the bottom. And it takes a life-time of knowledge and experience to deduce the button placement of the elevator at hand from the type of the building it's in, the age of the elevator, the location of the neighborhood, etc, etc.
Yes, I love pushing the elevator buttons. I love to feel that adrenaline rush as the horrifying childhood memories pour in and mix with the thrill of the shiny upscale elevator.
For one, back home every ride in an elevator is spent in a mental battle, trying to push back all those horror stories you've heard of people getting stuck. ...I had a bad feeling as I walked in...half way up I heard a strange noise...suddenly the light went off and everything stopped...it took me five minutes of fumbling in the dark to find the emergency button...and another two hours until someone came to pry the elevator open... So the stories go. And when you're halfway through your ride, you can swear you're hearing a weird noise and the lights are flickering and - the end is near! The thing is they never actually fix the elevators either. They come to pry the one stuck out (the "stuck-er", the "stuck-y"?), and then they kick the elevator back into its normal barely functioning condition. Literally - kick it back to condition. And that's the end of the story! There's no follow up, no troubleshooting, no service call placed. Psch! - what is this - suburban America?
Alright, you don't get stuck every time, of course. But let's talk about the buttons. Do you know what it takes for a little kid to press the button of an ancient overworked elevator that wasn't built up to any standards to begin with? It takes Herculean strength, that's what. Those buttons don't have touch censors, they don't light up when you press them, and they altogether refuse to accept your request, until you leverage your weight against the opposite wall and give it the push of your life. And even when they don't need be pushed overly hard, sometimes they need to be pushed a little down or a little to the right, or in some other sort of skilled zig-zag movement.
And finally, it's not infrequent to come across an elevator where the writing on the buttons has long since wiped off. And while you might think it's easy enough to count five buttons up to get to the fifth floor, there might be a lower basement level, there might be a couple, there might be simply unused buttons that were never removed and now look just like the rest of them, or the buttons might start with the top floors on the bottom. And it takes a life-time of knowledge and experience to deduce the button placement of the elevator at hand from the type of the building it's in, the age of the elevator, the location of the neighborhood, etc, etc.
Yes, I love pushing the elevator buttons. I love to feel that adrenaline rush as the horrifying childhood memories pour in and mix with the thrill of the shiny upscale elevator.
