Home » The Ironic Elevator (Part One)

 

Irony is not what I think of when I think of a rickety metal cage which rockets me up to the top of my apartment building every night when I get home. I never really thought about it before, to be honest. Yet if I had, I certainly wouldn't think of anything as dark or dramatic as irony.

 

But now, as I stand before the smooth metal doors waiting for the elevator to arrive to take me back down to the lobby, I think of irony.

 

It's funny, in a way. Not the elevator, of course, but what happened inside of it on my way up to where I am now. 

I had just taxied home from work and, surprisingly the elevator was in the lobby at the same time I was. That should have tipped me off that the ride was going to be a little strange. Ironic, even.

 

Perhaps I should explain.

 

The building in which I live is a forty-three story monolith of steel, concrete and glass. The lobby is made of polished blue marble, a color I don't particularly like. The marble floor, because of the blue color, always looks wet. I for one don't like to walk on a wet floor, especially in my own building.

 

Anyway, this tall building has only three elevators. Of these three, one is a service elevator which for some reason is always out of service. That leaves two. One of the two is always in the parking garage underneath the building. It seems to simply wait there, empty, while the wet blue lobby fills up with people waiting for the only other elevator. I know for a fact that there is always an empty elevator in the parking garage because whenever my wife and I drive to a restaurant or out of the city, the elevator is always there when we return; simply sitting there and open and empty.

 

I perhaps should explain. My wife does not work, yet she has a car. I do work, yet I have to taxi across Chicago every morning to my office on Lake Shore Drive and then taxi home every night. Sometimes I take the train, but this day - today - I took a taxi.

 

It's something I don't mind. I believe it is something called making a compromise. Or perhaps it is something called marriage. I mention it only to include my wife in this tale of the ironic ride I had on the elevator that, even as I speak, is either with its brother and in the parking garage or with its cousin and out of service.

 

It also might be in the lobby, yet . . .

 

No. I'm looking at the digital display above the doors and the elevator is not in the lobby. It is on the third, now forth . . . it's coming up. Finally.

 

I am on the forty-third floor, which I also probably forgot to mention, so it will take a couple of minutes to reach me. I will, I think, be able to finish my tale by then.

 

I am on this floor because I live in the penthouse of this building with my wife.

 

When I arrived home earlier tonight, almost four hours ago, in fact, the elevator had just arrived in the wet lobby and a man was exiting as I was entering. We passed each other on the threshold of the door. As I passed, I brushed his shoulder with my left arm. Immediately the man fell backward, back over the threshold, and slammed against the far wall in the elevator. It is there, when we were both in the elevator, where the irony begins.  

 

No, that isn't quite right. The irony begins later. But this is what led to that irony:

 

to be continued . . .