| Essay Non-Fiction posted September 11, 2022 | Chapters: |
...19 20 -21- 22... 
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When communication skills aren't an advantage
A chapter in the book A Fly on the Wall
On...Elevator Etiquette
by Rachelle Allen
February 7, 2001
It's finally happened. My future husband and college-age daughter have forbidden me from using the elevator in our high-rise apartment building anymore. (Thankfully, we are only on the fifth floor, and I am a still-fit former dance teacher and choreographer.) They say that if they don't forbid me soon, the landlord will, and that will bring shame upon us all.
Bobby doesn't even live with us, and Leah's at school most of the time between September and May, yet still they worry for their reputations-by-association. That's how bad this has become.
The problem, I am told, is that I have never acquired the fine art of elevator etiquette. Bobby says that, because I'm a teacher, my communication skills make silences feel awkward to me. His theory is that this creates an uncontrollable need in me to fill them. Usually, he adds, said skills are exceptional --possibly even the best of anyone else he knows-- but, in elevators, they fail me in epic proportions.
Take, for example, the time last month when our elevator ascended to the second floor and stopped there to allow our odd-but-friendly neighbor, with an overstuffed trash bag in hand, to board. She pressed floor six, where her sister lived.
"Oh, this is so embarrassing!" she wheezed to us in her tobacco-saturated voice. "You've caught me wearing my dirty sweatpants."
As the elevator doors closed, I felt the proper rejoinder to this statement was, "Well, at least you're wearing sweatpants!"
She gave me an indignant look, put her palm up just inches from my face, then quickly pressed the button for floor three and exited without another glance in our direction. (She's the one in dirty sweatpants, and she gives ME "The Hand"?)
After the doors closed again, Bobby gaped at me and repeated, "At least you're wearing sweatpants?"
"Yeah, I'm not quite sure what happened there," I told him.
Next came the time I divulged a bit of a "family secret" to my septuagenarian elevator mate.
"Isn't it amusing that three of our doormen are named Jim?" I asked her pleasantly as the doors in the lobby closed. She gave me a polite-ish smile. "Here's how our family knows which one we're referring to when we talk about them," I told her. "We call it the Degrees System. The white-haired one who's always smiling and says 'Hi! Welcome home!' when we enter the building? We call him Warm Jim. Then, the tall one, who's a sharp dresser and drives the red convertible? We call him Cool Jim. And the one who's young and tanned with that beautiful jet-black hair and those ice-blue eyes? He's Hot Jim. That's funny, right?"
Her lips were drawn downward and pressed together so tightly, she looked like a school marm after a prank had just been played on her. She offered the stiffest of little nods then, in quick succession, triple-tapped the button to her floor that was already lighted anyway.
The final straw for Bobby and Leah, though, happened this week. All three days of it, in fact.
On Monday, at 6:45 a.m., as the elevator doors opened on our floor, I saw a handsome, distinguished, beautifully dressed older man already on board. "Good morning!" I said in my Perky Piano Teacher voice.
He gave me a dignified nod and looked down at his expensive shoes. The door closed, and I breathed in his subtly luscious aftershave.
"Oh, wow, you smell SO GOOD!" I told him.
I'm pretty sure I'd describe the expression that flashed into his eyes as "psycho on board" as he edged closer to the back corner of our shared space. The remaining ride to the lobby was so painfully uncomfortable, it could have required medical care.
On Tuesday, at 6:45 a.m., as the elevator doors opened on my floor, once again I beheld the handsome, distinguished, beautifully dressed older man. At once, his pallor grayed, and his thought bubble read, "Oh, Lord, NOOO! Please, no!"
"Good morning," I said in a reserved, apologetic tone. He kept his head down as he nodded curtly and folded himself into the corner. The doors closed, and I said, "Today I'm not going to tell you you smell good because I know that made you very uncomfortable yesterday." He shot me a quick under-the-eyebrows look then returned to staring at his shoes.
I added, "Not that you don't still smell good. It's just that today I'm not going to say so."
Another palpably painful ride to the lobby. And, oh! You would not believe how fast that older man could jet to the parking lot!! Amazing! He must have been a sprinter in college or something.
Anyway, today, at 6:45 a.m., when the elevator doors opened on my floor, no one was in the cab. But when I arrived in the lobby, I saw the handsome, distinguished, beautifully dressed older man in his Mercedes, exiting the parking lot.
It's finally happened. My future husband and college-age daughter have forbidden me from using the elevator in our high-rise apartment building anymore. (Thankfully, we are only on the fifth floor, and I am a still-fit former dance teacher and choreographer.) They say that if they don't forbid me soon, the landlord will, and that will bring shame upon us all.
Bobby doesn't even live with us, and Leah's at school most of the time between September and May, yet still they worry for their reputations-by-association. That's how bad this has become.
The problem, I am told, is that I have never acquired the fine art of elevator etiquette. Bobby says that, because I'm a teacher, my communication skills make silences feel awkward to me. His theory is that this creates an uncontrollable need in me to fill them. Usually, he adds, said skills are exceptional --possibly even the best of anyone else he knows-- but, in elevators, they fail me in epic proportions.
Take, for example, the time last month when our elevator ascended to the second floor and stopped there to allow our odd-but-friendly neighbor, with an overstuffed trash bag in hand, to board. She pressed floor six, where her sister lived.
"Oh, this is so embarrassing!" she wheezed to us in her tobacco-saturated voice. "You've caught me wearing my dirty sweatpants."
As the elevator doors closed, I felt the proper rejoinder to this statement was, "Well, at least you're wearing sweatpants!"
She gave me an indignant look, put her palm up just inches from my face, then quickly pressed the button for floor three and exited without another glance in our direction. (She's the one in dirty sweatpants, and she gives ME "The Hand"?)
After the doors closed again, Bobby gaped at me and repeated, "At least you're wearing sweatpants?"
"Yeah, I'm not quite sure what happened there," I told him.
Next came the time I divulged a bit of a "family secret" to my septuagenarian elevator mate.
"Isn't it amusing that three of our doormen are named Jim?" I asked her pleasantly as the doors in the lobby closed. She gave me a polite-ish smile. "Here's how our family knows which one we're referring to when we talk about them," I told her. "We call it the Degrees System. The white-haired one who's always smiling and says 'Hi! Welcome home!' when we enter the building? We call him Warm Jim. Then, the tall one, who's a sharp dresser and drives the red convertible? We call him Cool Jim. And the one who's young and tanned with that beautiful jet-black hair and those ice-blue eyes? He's Hot Jim. That's funny, right?"
Her lips were drawn downward and pressed together so tightly, she looked like a school marm after a prank had just been played on her. She offered the stiffest of little nods then, in quick succession, triple-tapped the button to her floor that was already lighted anyway.
The final straw for Bobby and Leah, though, happened this week. All three days of it, in fact.
On Monday, at 6:45 a.m., as the elevator doors opened on our floor, I saw a handsome, distinguished, beautifully dressed older man already on board. "Good morning!" I said in my Perky Piano Teacher voice.
He gave me a dignified nod and looked down at his expensive shoes. The door closed, and I breathed in his subtly luscious aftershave.
"Oh, wow, you smell SO GOOD!" I told him.
I'm pretty sure I'd describe the expression that flashed into his eyes as "psycho on board" as he edged closer to the back corner of our shared space. The remaining ride to the lobby was so painfully uncomfortable, it could have required medical care.
On Tuesday, at 6:45 a.m., as the elevator doors opened on my floor, once again I beheld the handsome, distinguished, beautifully dressed older man. At once, his pallor grayed, and his thought bubble read, "Oh, Lord, NOOO! Please, no!"
"Good morning," I said in a reserved, apologetic tone. He kept his head down as he nodded curtly and folded himself into the corner. The doors closed, and I said, "Today I'm not going to tell you you smell good because I know that made you very uncomfortable yesterday." He shot me a quick under-the-eyebrows look then returned to staring at his shoes.
I added, "Not that you don't still smell good. It's just that today I'm not going to say so."
Another palpably painful ride to the lobby. And, oh! You would not believe how fast that older man could jet to the parking lot!! Amazing! He must have been a sprinter in college or something.
Anyway, today, at 6:45 a.m., when the elevator doors opened on my floor, no one was in the cab. But when I arrived in the lobby, I saw the handsome, distinguished, beautifully dressed older man in his Mercedes, exiting the parking lot.
It was right after I shared this vignette with Bobby and Leah that they issued the edict about my new stairs-only status. Sometimes they can be SO sanctimonious!
 Recognized |
#12 September 2022 |
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