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Take the Stairs, You Lazy Bastard

4/4/06

an executive summary

I came out of the parking garage and came into my building's lobby; I was running late this particular morning (9:25 AM) and since I have a status meeting every morning at 9:30 AM, I didn't want to take my normal route (hoof it up the stairs to my fifth-floor office), so I hopped the elevator.  There was a woman already waiting there in the lobby when I rolled up, so when a boxcar came available, we hopped in.

"What floor?" she asked, kindly.

"Five, please."  She tapped the "5" button...then, she hit the "2" button.

My blood boiled, only slightly because I had work-related stuff on my mind, but it hit me that I was mad because this woman--from all indications, able-bodied and desperately in need of discretion when approaching the buffet at your local Sizzler--was actually going to do it:

SHE WAS TAKING THE ELEVATOR ONE MOTHERFUCKING FLOOR.

We did the quick zip up one floor, BING, the doors opened, we made it all the way to our fucking destination, and Sally or Dakotah or whateverthefuckhernameis turned to me with the have-a-nice-day-guy-I-don't-know eyes and proceeded to carry her fat ass off to another day in Cube City.  The doors closed, I made it up to the fifth floor and just made my status call.

In a time when our country is more health-obsessed--leaps and bounds more--than any other time in our great history, I'm amazed at how many people I see in our office building that have probably never walked as far as their master bedroom.  I mean, we're talking about walking up one flight of stairs to get to a place where you will probably spend 80-90% of your day planted firmly in a chair behind a desk!  Walking was, is, and always will be the key to keeping the weight off.  If you have known me for even 20 minutes you know how badly I eat and how (relatively) little I exercise, but I walk everywhere and even on days when I can't get a good walk in, I still park in the back corner of most parking lots, on the highest floor in a parking garage or at the wrong end of the mall in order to guarantee that I have to walk for at least 15 minutes every day.

That's it!  You can talk about metabolism all you want--if you are constantly cutting corners on exercise or just generally a lazy bastard, you are gonna look like the next attraction at Sea World!  But, there I am regularly in my building, watching folks not even make the "long" walk to the corporate kitchen to get themselves a soda...get it yourself, Uncontrollably Large Ass Man!  Now, if you've got a health issue, or you're on crutches, or you can't breathe the filthy air that usually infiltrates the decent air in many corporate stairwells, okay, take the freakin' elevator.  But, if you're not hurt, you can suffer and make it up one flight of stairs, even if you are carrying your gym bag or that other 100-pound office gorilla, your shiny new Dell laptop.

My buddy Joel--the other guy in my office that can regularly be found making the walk up from the lobby to our fifth-floor spot--made the mistake of taking the elevator from our office to the sub-level building cafeteria last week, and he summed up his experience perfectly.  There is nothing funnier than trying to take an elevator down to the cafeteria and then, on your descent, watching somebody get onto the elevator at the second floor to take it one floor to the lobby.  In total, that means you get on and have two stops before getting off at the final destination; of the six total floors, you've hit four of them in just one ride.

Joel was saying that the looks people were giving that second-floor bandwagon bandit were priceless; the look that says "you Rebel scum" was evident on everyone's face, since that bastard was breaking up a perfectly smooth elevator ride only to ride the damned thing one floor, as if walking DOWN one flight of stairs was just too much to deal with.  Further, about 10 times out of 10, it is FASTER to walk one flight of stairs than it is to wait for an elevator to take you up or down just one floor.

Why do people suck?  Do us all a favor when you go to work:  use those hooves that the big man upstairs gave to you and walk up a freakin' flight of stairs.  You'll feel better that you did.

 

Random Bellviews, courtesy of Bell & Longer Community Trust:

• Watching the Bombers put up 15 on Opening Night:  Opening Weekend

• Anything involving the words "Free Steak":  $9.50 Show

• Three ACC teams in the Final Four...in the Women's Bracket:  Matinee

• Not getting a cost-of-living base pay increase:  Rental

• The 2006 Final Four games and the national championship game on the Men's Bracket:  Hard Vice

 

justin@bellviewmovies.com