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07:27 PM
Bikram Vohra
JournalismPakistan.com
September 25, 2015
What is it about people and elevators that when they meet common sense vanishes like a morning mist? I thought behavior was most crippled at airports but elevators are no better. I am in one the other day and the following events occur, no kidding.
We are waiting on the 31st floor and this man comes and sees the lit button for ‘ground’ and presses it, anyway. What do you think we were doing there, sunshine, enjoying the view? Then comes another of his tribe and whacks it hard, as if the show of strength will magically intimidate the elevator into coming up faster.
Finally, the doors open and there is always this one special cretin who pushes his way in even before those who want to get out can… get out that is, if you let them.
His cousin, the ‘close doors’ fanatic now gets into action by banging the pointy type arrows that face each other in a display of incandescent intellectual brilliance.
Someone is leaning against the ‘open doors’ (naturally) so they keep colliding and sliding and you could cheerfully smack that person but the long journey into the bowels of the earth has begun. The elevator stops at 30, 29, 28, 27 and you can now begin to cry but so well conditioned are we to this agony that when it bypasses 26 we almost feel like panting with joy. At which point a guy gets a call from his office and begins to yell at someone in some foreign language and none of us dare to tell him to shut up.
At 22 the lift stops and yes, you got it. There is a clot of men and women and one asks hopefully going up… and you want to scream because there are little itty bitty arrows showing its going down can’t you see… and he gets in anyway. What’s with you mister, you think this is the scenic route?
At 16, by which time everyone is looking at the floor or some spot on the walls because no one really knows where to look in an elevator unless you are fascinated by the mole on the left side of the stranger’s neck in front of you, there is always one person stuck at the back who wakes up to the fact that this is his floor. Now he begins to push and shove to get out and behaves as if it is everybody else’s fault and stamps toes and inevitably he is carrying a large bag so that hits some lady and dislodges her spectacles and she displays her displeasure and he doesn’t even apologize (no one apologizes in an elevator, it’s against the rules) and finally, like Columbus finding land you reach ground and stagger out to discover you have left your car keys upstairs.
(The writer is a Senior Editorial Advisor of Khaleej Times and the paper’s former Editor. He has also been the Editor of Gulf News, Gulf Today, Emirates Today and Bahrain Tribune)
If my call is so important to them, why don’t they answer it for 22 minutes?
How come when I want to, but something specific online is the only item out of stock.
When I get into a queue or lane going fast, the moment I get in, it becomes the slowest and refuses to budge.
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