domo-kun diaries
Ok, y'all forced me.

I thought throwing my icy, oh-no-you-didn't-look contemptuously at you would have scarred you into mending your ways. I was mistaken, dear reader. Apparently, I have to pen an entry called Elevator Etiquette for Everyone Ever, listing rules which cavemen had mastered shortly after they discovered the need to go upstairs. So here goes, people. Listen up. On how to go up.

Rule-1: Do not make small talk with me, Steve. Yeah. 'Steve'. No one else does it, Steve. Not Rahul. Not Carlos. Not Enrique. Not !xobile. Just all you Steves. In any case, even when I say "Yeah! Isn't it?" in reply to your "What a lovely day! It's like 80 degrees today", I'm lying, Steve.
First, because I have no idea how much 80 degrees is in Celsius. I'm not standing there with a vacuous look, mumbling "cee equals eff minus thirty-two into...", while you pretend to be Einstein.
And second, because I think a 'lovely' day is one when it's cloudy, and just a little chilly. With a hint of the impending monsoons. We've taken several helpings of melanin at the buffet, thankyouverymuch - we don't crave for the Sun like your white ass does.


Rule-2: US Intelligence has recently declassified documents which reveal that until now, all elevators were to be programmed with a secret 'sense of urgency' factor: the time it took an elevator to approach a floor was to be inversely proportional to the number of times the call button had been engaged. In mathematically challenged MBA-speak, that simply means that if you engaged an already engaged call-button, by hitting it repeatedly, the elevator was to understand that you weren't kidding around, that you really want to go someplace; that it was to drop every other request and get to your floor super-fast. It was originally meant for secret-agents and fire-fighters and the like. Until .. until it was discovered by magnificent you.

If you think all this sounds rather dubious, let me remind you dear reader, that this belonged to the annals of Truth: the US Intelligence files. Rumour has it that it was filed under 'Where's my elevator: dude, where's my elevator?', alphabetically before 'WMDs gone wild: Iraq's rack'.

So yeah, now that the special urgency factor has been removed from all operating elevators, it's time for you to stop being 'special' too, and resist the urge to pound on the buttons. It has no use anymore. Once engaged, it will make no difference whether you leave it alone or make passionate love to it by the beach-side. Save your hand for other amorous purposes, perhaps.

Rule-3: Do not practice your jabs in the elevator until you've checked to see that there's no little Asian woman in the corner, shivering, and repeatedly hitting the red alarm button.


Rule-4: The only people I love more than the repeat-rambos from Rule-2 are your friendly neighborhood litter-bugs. Aren't they cute, ladies and gentlemen? Leaving us with mementos of their ephemeral stay as they hop from elevator to elevator, spreading the joy of squalor. Candy-wrappers, bits of orange peels, tantalizing bits of crossword puzzles, brake-fluid, little crumbs of donuts for the travel-loving mice, even chewed gum! Oh, I can't decide what I'd rather do more: read 'blog poetry' about unrequited love or endure the excruciating pain of screening out your filth, as my eye surreptitiously darts every so often toward it in morbid disgust.

If ever I meet one of you, I will personally bludgeon you to death with my fists. No, really, I will. Like in Ultimate Cage Fighting. And when you're screaming, I'm going to stuff that piece of gum back into your mouth.
(Editor's note: stringing a bunch of 'power sentences' together because you don't have the ability to coherently connect them together and calling that poetry doesn't make you deep. It makes you bipin-at-fifteen.)


Rule-5: There is some debate among in the Levitating Impropriety-Factor Theorists (LIFT) whether Rule-5 is just an expansion of Rule-4, but I will list it here because I know there are some people who need it explicitly stated. Please leave with everything you came into the elevator with: Rule-4 isn't restricted to solids and liquids. It's an enclosed space, with poor ventilation. 'Nuff said.

Rule-7. Ok, I know I'm sounding like an temperamental Michael Jackson in this post - screechy and child-like (oh the Pun! it burneth mine eye!) Here's a simple one then, to balance things out. The rule usually takes beginners marginally longer to master, but once you learn it, dear reader, you can be all smug and throw disdainful looks at the ignorant, which as we all agree, is the true purpose of life. I'll teach you this rule with the help of an example:
Say you're in the elevator with two other people, who want to go to the 3rd and 9th floor (respectively). You wish to go to the 7th floor. To meet me. I'm on the 7th floor. At home, and at work. Fancy that. But yeah, so you want to go to the 7th floor.

Which button do you press?

For those of you who answered, "ummmnn... 7?", I'm sorry to inform you that you've incurred a severe, debilitating loss in karma. The right answer is "5 and 7". Make them a sequence people! 3, 5, 7, 9! You can't travel with a '3, 7, 9'! And don't tell me unsequenced floors can make a pleasant journey. What are you going to claim next - that Joey and Chandler aren't gay?
Minor squabbles aside, let's move to the next example. For 2 points, which button would you press if the already-engaged buttons were 3 and 6, and you want to go to the 7th floor? Obviously, '3, 6, 7' is a terrible combination.

Before you proceed, dear reader, think.

The answer? Hit '5'. 365 days in a year. Then, when '3' gets off, quickly hit '7' to get the next combination '5, 6, 7'. Awesome! See, this is fun.

Extra credit: You're in the elevator, with Britney Spears. She's hit P1 (penthouse-1). You want to go to the 7th floor (ok, ok, you want to go to the penthouse with her, but Rule-2 prohibits you from hitting an already engaged button, and, in a serendipitous stroke of alliteration, hitting on an already engaged woman). Which button do you press?

This might confuse amateurs - how does one deal with a P1? What sequence do you make? 'P1, 7'? What does that even mean?
Thankfully, after having done this for many years now, I know all the nooks and crannies of this game. The right answer is '2'. See, P1 could only mean 'prime number 1', which of course, is 2. Not 1, but 2.
"You know it's fascinating," I tell Britney, "that 1 isn't considered a prime. Or a composite. The first prime is... no no... has been declared to be 2!". I like to impress the ladies with Math.
She looks up from her vanity mirror, and says "Yeah, how fassssicnating!"

My dreams are shattered: I never thought Britney would be sarcastic. People even claim she wrote a song about hitting something more than once.

I'm sorry baby, it's over between us. I should probably go now, and write some poetry on my blog about our lost love.


PS: In the first two case-studies, if anyone dares ask you why you engaged '5' and didn't get off, explain to them 'high five, of course'. Raising your arm as you make this request is optional.
PS: The observant among you would have noticed that there was no Rule-6. That's because a rule so drenched with floor-7s could only be a Rule-7. This kind of meta-reasoning which, to the untrained (but observant) eye, seems to arbitrarily violate Rule-7 (1,2,3,4,5,7?), is not uncommon. I would encourage you not to argue with me. That's like arguing with Superman about why he won't use the elevator.