One of the greatest things about living in a high-rise is the elevator experience. See, one of the most enjoyable moments I have living in my complex is riding the elevators up and down from home, to lobby, to the gym, to the laundry and so on.
Yes, I've been stuck in an elevator, three times! I imagine this is what it looked like from the outside.
Here's what I particularly enjoy about the elevators: The people. Not only are there a bunch of outrageous characters living here, but many of them are women of all shapes, sizes and demeanor. Seriously, do the math. There are 44 floors. With the exception of the first floor and the second floor (private lofts, four of them) there are 12 apartments per floor. Given that there is AT LEAST one person living in every apartment, that means there are 528 residents living here at any given time. Now, since I KNOW there are at least two people living in most of the apartments here, I'm going to shoot that up to about 1,000 residents, give or take a hundred or so residing around me.
It's kind of like a bachelor's dream. Going by the national statistics, if there are 1,000 residents in my building, then at least four to five hundred of them are, statistically speaking, women. Every single day I ride up and down in my elevator, chances are good I will be riding with a woman.
The elevator rides are always an adventure. I'm not talking about a couple going at it like rabbits once the door closes, only to emerge looking dishevelled and in a daze. But the mere experience of riding elevators is something I've always enjoyed, and not because I'm whizzing upwards in a metal box controlled by computers and cables and maintained by angry, gruff technicians.
There's something fun about the awkwardness of two people, complete strangers, riding alone in an elevator. I'm a large man, I can be intimidating sometimes. A lot of the women I ride up with are smaller, more petite women, mostly dancers or chorus girls in shows at the performing arts center. They're attractive, they always seem very nervous. I don't stare, but it's hard not to look at them as they stand near the front of the elevator, fidgeting with their purses or staring at their phones.
In time, though, if they stick around long enough, or if they live here, we all get to recognize each other and I've had some interesting conversations in those rides. I've chatted with a girl on the fourth floor about music, a woman on the 19th floor about public relations, I've had conversations about BP, politics, sports and even relationships.
Of course these are all short conversations. Three minutes, tops. And since we both know these are short rides, we somehow manage to cut through all the polite banter and get right down to business. Of course we say hi to each other and then a question or observation sparks the conversation and suddenly we're talking as if we're long lost friends.
As I've stated previously, I've been living in high-rises for a long time now, five years here, four years in another complex, three years before that in a different building. Oddly enough, even though all of these complexes are separated by miles of road and situated in very different economic areas, each of them have some interesting things in common. Of course, the elevators have similarities too, such as the strange smells, the stuffy-hot atmosphere and the occasional dog pee on the floor.
First, I believe that every high-rise has screwy fire alarms. I'm usually up late or working from home, and in every building, the alarms have gone off randomly at all hours of the day or night. You get used to the alarm going off for no reason. So it came as a huge surprise one night when the alarm went off around 2am one night a couple of years ago. Right before the alarm went off, my lights had flickered on and off. It was kind of spooky, actually. Then the alarm went off and about five minutes later, I lost all electricity. It was strange, so I walked out into my hallway and to my shock, smoke was billowing out from underneath the electrical door and out from the elevator doors.
A moment of panic set in as I tried to figure out what exactly was going on. For so long a fire alarm was simply a distraction, a nuisance. But now it seemed as if it was a real, honest-to-goodness fire...in my building! In my sweats and t-shirt, I grabbed my phone and started walking down the pitch black staircase.
Slowly, I was joined by several other folks who had been rudely jolted awake by the blaring alarm and the smell of smoke. I chatted with several lovely women while I waited outside for four hours for the fire department to clear the building.
One of the other interesting commonalities in each building is the people. It seems as if every single high rise in the world has the same mix of individuals living within its walls. There is the strange couple that looks at everybody as if they were criminals. They don't speak much, they squint when they look at you and they mumble when they say hello. For a while this couple lived right next door to me. They had, well, I guess they still have, a small dog, a tiny dog, a poodle I think, that they take for a walk four to five times a day.
I have to clarify when I say "take for a walk" because really, they carry the little dog around in a miniature pet carrier. The front of the carrier is open and the dog sits with its front paws hanging out the front with its head just barely poking out from underneath the little blue curtain that hangs down from the top. They lived next door to me for about a year, before moving to a lower floor. I don't know if I made them move, I might have. I kind of terrorized them, I think. I don't throw a lot of parties, but when I do, they tend to get a little rowdy and loud.
More than once, I would get a call from the front desk, or a knock on my door. "Please be quiet" they would say. And then another call or knock, another request. This would go on a few times, until, more than once, a very angry and tired-looking neighbor, dog carrier in hand, slippers on his feet would pound on my door. I was drunk, he was red-faced, he'd yell, I'd blow him off. That was pretty much the nature of our relationship.
So, I can understand why he might look at me with disdain. But he looks at everyone like that. It's strange. Even his dog seems to look at people with a suspicious glint in its beady little eyes. Every time I see him now, he's still taking his dog for a walk, and he still mumbles when he says hello.
Then there's the person I call "the nervous one". In every instance, this is a middle-aged woman, generally tallish, skinny, wearing glasses and dressed like a 1950's librarian. In my last building the "nervous one" never actually spoke to anyone. She mostly talked to herself and stared straight ahead. I think people truly frightened her. I don't mean, made her fidgety, but really, REALLY scared her.
In my building now, the "nervous one" looks much like all of the other "nervous ones," tall, skinny, dressed in severe gray skirts and buttoned up blouses and horn rimmed glasses. She rushes around as if she's always late for something and never, ever talks to anyone. She happens to live a few floors below me, so I catch a ride with her from time to time. Two days ago, she actually said hello to me. I was so shocked, I almost didn't reply. It was just the two of us in the elevator, but I thought she might have a phone in her hear and was talking to someone else.
I finally said hello back and she commented on the heat and something about her neighbor's dog keeping her awake at night. I'm not sure if she thought I was someone else, or what exactly happened. In four years, this lady has never said a single word to me, or anyone else in our building as far as I know. And here she was being practically verbose.
There are a ton of other characters in the building...the slutty women, the slutty guys, the angry couple, the couple that is WAAAYYY too in love and takes every advantage of public displays of affection to let the rest of the world know exactly how much in love they really are. Recently we even got our own Balke. Unless you're over 30 years old, you probably have no idea who Balke is. He's a character from an old TV show called "Perfect Strangers". Balke was a foriegner, living with a cousin in New York, or some big city. It was your basic fish out of water story, hilarity ensued.
Our Balke, is just like that character, only real. He chats away, happy as can be, but no one really understands what he's saying. He has a high pitched voice, is timid, doesn't look anyone directly in the eye, but still he chats away to anyone who will listen or respond. We've had fascinating conversations during our rides together. I'm not sure what we talked about, I think it's mostly about the weather, but it's hard to walk away from those conversations in a bad mood. Cheery and seemingly clueless might not be such a bad way to go through life.
Sure, there are the fights you hear at 4am, the drunken parties who's pumping music filters down to you at midnight on a Tuesday, and the whoops and hollers from inebriated men and women as they stumble back to their apartments.
All in all, though, it's great living in a high-rise for no other reason than the elevator rides. As I stated, I've yet to get a date from my ups and downs. I have been stuck in my elevator for a few hours, I napped. Not so surprisingly, I found myself wondering why I had to get stuck by myself in the elevator instead of with one of the single dancers living on the 10th floor. Oh well, it could have been worse, I could have been stuck with my angry neighbor or with the "nervous one".
Check back soon, I'll be discussing the issue of juggling, and I'm not talking about circus juggling, either.
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