Ah, Van Hise, the tallest building on campus. Even if you were taking a bus ride out of the city, it sticks up as an indomitable monolith behind you, beckoning you back to campus. In symbolic form, it represents the insurmountable height of the heap of homework you have waiting for you. Yes, even the typically undaunted, seasoned building-climber King Kong would wring his hands in the air, crying out with defeat, “I can’t go for that, no can do,” at the very sight of it.
It would make sense, therefore, that this building would vitally incorporate an elevator in its design. But, it has become now widely known that this elevator is sometimes being taken to the third floor. Hear the following pleas for not doing so:
First and foremost, Van Hise, in all of its architectural ingenuity, niftily has access directly to the third floor from the outside. All one would need to do is walk a few more steps beyond the invariably-dark front entrance and infiltrate from the outside. But who said that?! If you need extra convincing, this may or may not be a time saver, given how many people aggregate in a crowd around the first floor elevators. You’d be skipping the line — think of it as a Flash Pass, without the extra financial hassle. Convincing you yet?
No? Okay, okay … Well, there’s also the fact that every time that elevator stops, it gives even the most stomach-turning roller coaster a run for its money. With your egregious frequent use of only taking the elevator to the third floor, everybody else who happens to be in there will start to catch on. Soon enough, the general public will find out about this and recognize it as a cheaper alternative to Six Flags, and take it up, down, and all around all day. After that, no doubt given the way those things shake out, there will be cotton candy and popcorn stands that spring up to meet the market demand and need. Forget that aggregate by the elevator doors, you’ll be shouldering past a line out of the unlit front doors to get to your lecture in time. Pretty soon if things continue down that path, you’ll have a man with a wall of zip-tie-ensnared stuffed animals behind him guessing your weight and birthday on your way to class. Who needs that?!
No way, you still won’t stop?! This is gonna take all day, and you’ve got to be at your lecture on the third floor. You could’ve already walked there by this time (call back to the first point for rhetorical emphasis). How about the fact that there’s not even an elevator operator in there? Nobody to ask you what floor you’re going on? Oh, the humanity! Well, perhaps that’s for the better, because can you imagine stepping inside, let’s say, Brewster the elevator boy’s car, and allowing him to welcome you in with a courteous sweep of his uniform-enrobed arm? Then after exchanging niceties with him, having to cough up that you only intend to go to the third floor? Can you imagine how despairing that would be for Brewster to hear? After he just put on this whole show of hospitality for you? Now you tell him you practically don’t even need the doors to shut to arrive at your destination? He went through all the trouble of ironing his snappy dry-clean only suit for today’s shift and this is how you repay him? For the hypothetical mutual benefit of Brewster and you, let’s not.
If all of these considerations still didn’t convince you, then, oh well: only you are in control of your actions, and you should do as you please. If the third floor elevator ride, however short-lived and jolty, is what you need in order for your routine to slide into place and therefore make your day, then hey, that’s your prerogative. You gotta do you, boo. But, don’t say these pleas didn’t warn you if next time you do it, your fellow elevator-riders cast a glance of judgement. Maybe that is the cost of living life to the fullest and riding the elevator to the third floor-est.
