Elevator Problems

The downtown office building where I work also houses the offices of a prominent weekly magazine, which for purposes of anonymity I shall refer to only as "Wusiness Beek". I work on the second floor, and run up and down the stairs several times a day, ferrying mail and coffee. The suit-wearing, palm-pilot twiddling, self-satisfied-looking 45-year old men of "Wusiness Beek" favor taking the elevator to their fourth-floor palace (I've heard they have a lap pool and jacuzzi up there) and always seem to be laughing about something when they step onto or off it.

THE INTERN has always wondered what these ultra-geeks were laughing about in there—poolside shenanigans? Ponzi schemes? So I have taken to running after them when I see them heading for an elevator, jumping in before the doors close, and staring at the mirrored ceiling casually as I strain to overhear their banter.

But I've noticed something strange.

No matter how loquacious they seem to be when I spy them coming down the hall, they always drop their cheerful facades and take on expressions of extreme embarrassment when THE INTERN squeezes her ferret-like body through the elevator doors and gives them a friendly grin before assuming her position of inconspicuity.

It's like they're embarrassed by the mere existence of a human being who is not a 45-year old male Wusiness Beek editor. It genuinely pains them to confront this fact of existence. I can see it eating at their souls as we stand there, within smelling distance of one another, for the fifteen full seconds it takes for the elevator to reach its destination.

"Guys," I want to say, "it's all right. It's a-a-a-all right. I'm not bitter at all."

When the elevator stops and everyone disembarks, THE INTERN spies the Wusiness Beekers giving each other meaningful glances, as if to say, "Dodged a bullet there, boys. God knows, fifteen more seconds and she would have tried to SNATCH OUR BODIES."