The elevator opens on the seventeenth floor and somebody enters. First I calculate the amount of time it’ll take to hit the lobby level. Do I initiate a conversation or not? Do I say hello and risk opening a can of worms? Do I ask a stranger how they are? Maybe they’re just as hesitant as me to take the elevator for reasons of forced niceness, but twenty flights of stairs is the only other option I have, though I guess one could jump out a window and take the EZPass lane.
Then add a dog full of pee and poop to the equation.
Is it a he or a she? How old is she? Is she friendly? May I pet her?
While she’s friendly there’s still no petting allowed. Stella’s got a propensity toward leakage when greeted by strangers. She’s perhaps too friendly. I picture her opening the front door then leading a burglar to the fancy china and flatware.
An even worse experience is when the other person has a dog plus the poor judgment to enter the elevator cab with it. My imagination suddenly congers up a furry cock fight.
Okay so you get of the building and start walking. Three teenage girls glued to their cells parade at you in a company front. No yielding. A homeless man sleeping over a grate located directly in the middle of the sidewalk. Slow walkers. Stuff like that.
Now I’m back from our walk yet still navigating to claim some personal space. Then the doorman waves me over to tell me I’ve got a delivery.
Me: I’ll pick it up some other time.
Him: You mean you’re gonna leave it here?
Me: Not indefinitely.
Him: So like when?
Do I need this? Hell no. If I was a jovial person, I’d pursue a career in politics. I’m not jovial. The first topic of freshman orientation at Fordham University started with the Provost demanding every male stand up and remove his wallet from his hind right pocket and then scolded them.
That’s your sucker pocket!
No hello. No petting. Just an hour lecture on how to avoid becoming a statistic. Plus it was the Summer of Sam in New York City. All etiquette had to be thrown into the trash can upon exiting Keating Hall. Fifty years later I’m still tossing stuff into a trash can.
You see, sometimes etiquette exists in your refusal to employ etiquette.