I'm afraid I'm developing a rather particular sort of anxiety toward a set of elevators at the hospital. More than anything I think it would have to be classified as a social anxienty. At the center of our main tower there is a bank of three staff elevators, technically speaking. For the past several months, the far left elevator has been out of service, so functionally we're just talking about a pair of elevators. As is bound to happen, one of the elevators is faster than the other. I wouldn't expect them to be exactly the same, but I also wouldn't expect a speed difference this extreme. From what I can perceive while riding in the elevators, they travel up and down at roughly the same speed, but the slow elevator takes much longer to open or close its doors and wastes more time at each stop. Therefore, the more stops it makes on its way, the slower it is, relative to the fast elevator. This is what always makes me nervous while waiting to get on the elevator.

Say both doors open at the same time, both cars fill up, the doors close, and you ride all the way to the top floor. You want to already be walking away when you hear the "ping" of the other elevator just arriving so you will feel validated in your ability to choose the right elevator, just like Ray picking a checkout line at Chik-Fil-A or Paul Giamatti at the grocery store in American Splender, which I just finished watching. So, obviously given the choice I always take the fast elevator and silently sneer at all the people too oblivious to notice a difference between the two.

It seems to me, though, that when I push the button and have to wait, the slow elevator arrives first a disproportionate percentage of the time. What usually happens is that I am alone in the elevator lobby when I push the button, then while I wait several people walk up and wait for the elevator with me. Eventually the slow elevator "arrives", presumably because the fast elevator has been busy ferrying people up and down between floors and is probably near the top floor while the slow elevator has been sitting on my floor all along obstinately refusing to open its doors to me. Here's where the social anxiety comes in. Everybody else files into the elevator car, with someone usually holding the door open so I can get in (this being completely unnecessary because these doors have never closed before someone could get on). But I'm thinking "I've been waiting long enough that the fast elevator should just about be here." So I walk close to the shaft to try to hear the pinging of the elevator as it passes the floors above me on its way down. Then I say,"That's okay, you go ahead," which is fine when the car is almost full but, with two or three people, feels like the most inane form of snobbery conceivable.

Then there was the awkward situation, likely exaggerated in my mind, that I always fear I will repeat. I joined the crowd in the slow elevator and was standing just inside the doors. We all stood there waiting for the doors to close for the longest time, while the nurse manning the buttons had pressed the "DOOR CLOSE" button at least ten times. Just as the doors started to close, I heard the other elevator arrive and instinctively stepped out to change cars, causing the doors to reopen for I don't know how long. A lot of the time I'll just take the stairs, all to avoid saying "I'm waiting for the good elevator."