indignantly yours...
Dear Elevator manufacturers
We have to talk about what happens or rather, doesn’t happen in elevators. The outright level of awkwardness it manifests is enough to actually make one go look for the stairs even if you know it will trigger a fire alarm. The involuntary surrender of personal space is an insult to the circumference we have been cultivating our entire lives. Further, to add to your utter failure when it comes to cultivating an already unhealthy activity, you’ve literally single-handedly given rise to the most heinous category of music, ‘elevator music’. What is truly astounding is that elevators everywhere remain unwavering in their music selection, obviously employed to eradicate a feeling which is only ever felt in any other space when you in fact, hear elevator music. Furthermore, one of the prominent manufacturers of elevators goes by the name of Schindler and the name Schindlers’s Lifts is inscribed in plain sight on the button panel. Now I’m not sure whether this fellow named his company before or after the Liam Neeson movie, but I don’t think the irony of being trapped in a tiny metal box hanging a hundred feet from the ground by two cables is lost on anyone. Buildings waste endless amounts of space creating entrance lobbies that look like and match the volume a sizable cathedral would take up, creating a similar ambiance of riches and opulence. Yet in this same demi-holy establishment, the only bit of comfort you are provided with in the elevator is three enormous mirrors obviously mounted so that the space doesn’t seem that enclosed. There is however nothing that makes you more self-aware than standing three inches from a complete stranger while having three angles of that person and yourself reflected back at you.
Now finding a solution would be a difficult task as it is clear that everybody is amply aware of it, really despises it and furthermore is fully aware that staring down at a phone screen pretending not to be available, accentuates the body presence threefold. Despite this, everyone remains too lazy to take the stairs despite sitting 90% of the day and will persist taking the elevator as it is such a climactic invention of the modern age that you’d be a damn fool not utilize it in all it’s uplifting splendor.
Firstly dear elevator manufacturers, the initial step is to replace the mirrors with television screens. Perhaps it can show imagery of people who are simply walking into a lift as well. It should look like they are fellow passengers. They however become engrossed in the most stimulating and informative conversation available to modern man. There’s a fantastic range of information that deals with common misconceptions from masturbating not actually causing blindness to the doctrine of the trinity and the word itself not being present anywhere in the Bible . How about broadcasting an informative collection of life hacks that no one actually takes the time to look up until the problem has been exasperated to such a level that traveling in the lift and hearing the information becomes the best life hack yet. We all know however that nothing breaks the ice like a good hardy tummy laugh. So if you’re not going to install the elevators with screens for walls, simply play some Mitch Hedburg or even Jerry Seinfeld stand up comedy. With elevator music and wall to wall mirrors being the only solution you have come up with over the years, even just adding a homeless person dressed as a lobby boy telling people his life story would be a step up.
