City of Grace Mesa

The Elevator Effect

Last week my friend Dan and I went to see a student's play at the Mesa Arts Center. We showed up a bit tardy, so we had to take the elevator up to the top floor and slip in the back row inconspicuously. This, of course, was nearly impossible for two big guys in pitch black darkness shuffling past people packed like sardines into collapsible theater seats with no "skootch by" room. But we managed to snuggle in just in time for the first big musical number.

I should say that I told myself the last time I saw a play with Dan that I'd never do it again. We always get into trouble. Something that's not suppose to be funny always ends up striking us funny somewhere about the first act and we start giggling like school girls (also, not very becoming of two large men). We end up spending the rest of the performance dodging dirty looks from sinister stage moms catching the 20^th consecutive performance of their child who is referenced in the program only as "Inanimate Tree #4".

This time, we were fortunately able to act our age...mostly.

On the way out, we strolled back to the elevator and piled in, this time with a huge mass of play-goers. It was a tight-fitting wall-to-wall people pile-the kind where no one has room to lift a finger, and because of this fact, everyone's noses inevitably start itching. All of us were having a hundred different splintered conversations about who knows what: the overuse of spandex in theater apparel, or how the lead actor was surprisingly believable as a 6 foot smooth-talking frog (and he was-he really sold it). Yet, as the unspoken universal mandate dictates, once we were all loaded in and those hefty metal doors kissed closed-silence. Absolute quiet.

We all watched the numbers glow in a downward spiral. Then that familiar elevator ding, the doors pry open and we all magically transformed back into "Chatty Cathy's". It really didn't seem weird, because it's such a part of the whole predictable elevator experience that we don't even give it a second thought anymore.

What caught my attention about the whole ordeal was actually much later. That evening when my wife and I went out to dinner-sitting there in the lobby waiting to be seated-it was the same thing. The elevator effect had somehow followed me there. And the next day at a doctor's office, waiting for a guy in a white coat to stick a light up my kid's nose, in the check-out line at Fry's, in the lobby of our youth service-it was everywhere; tracking me down time and time again.

I guess what I'm trying to say is-I think the elevator effect is stalking me. In fact, I'm confident of it.

It seems like wherever I go, everyone pretends to be the only person there. Rooms, lobbies, parks, grocery warehouses full of expressionless people watching the numbers glow; filling the time between floors. In my recent obsessive-compulsive sociological reading exploits, I've been knocked breathless by the recent statistics claiming this as "the loneliest time on earth". How can this be? There are so many people everywhere-amazing people; people with interesting ideas and fascinating stories to tell, people with endearing quirks and stunning ways of thinking about life-and yet...silence.

Personally, I blame the elevator.

This invention has ruined us all. And it won't stop until it's muted the voice boxes of everyone everywhere. No, no, no-the elevator effect couldn't be content dominating the up-and-down boxes for which it was named, it had to try and take over the world: the classic mistake of every comic book super villain. The elevator effect is ruining the world and choking out conversation and eye contact and good old fashioned neighborly friendship.

But herein lies the genius. We can fight back. Yes, yes-you. And you don't need a fancy utility belt, a grip of kryptonite or even a chain email supposedly originated by Dr. James Dobson to get you started. Fight back by just, well, it almost seems so simple that it's going to look ridiculous all spelled out:

Talk to people.

...and possibly take the stairs.