Elevator stragglers: an offensive pandemic

Okay, so here's a good one. It's a dull Wednesday afternoon in a busy office building. You're standing in a crowd of impatient people waiting for the elevator to get to the second floor - your floor, all the way from floor nine, where the bosses have been having an executive meeting all day about really important matters (you know, like where they'll be teeing off next weekend and who's buying the first round at the lounge after work). Anyway, the button on the wall is lit with a spectacular yellow glow, announcing to all who can see it that that swanky mechanical lift-basket is well on its way, bearing gifts of funky odors and terrible jazz music. Perhaps it will make one last stop or so along the way to pick up a stranded paper-pusher, but it's well aware of your presence, and it's ready to do its job and carry you up, down, or wherever it is that you desire to go (actually, I think I probably covered all the bases with 'up or down'). Everyone standing there knows that a lit button means the thing's coming, but it never fails that someone else will come along late in the game to join the waiting party - we'll call him "the elevator straggler." So he strides on over to the pack, grinning like an overzealous jackass, and what does he do? He extends that slimy index finger of his like it possesses some kind of unique magical ability and presses that button one more time. Does he really think that seven people are so incompetent that they will stand around like lost sheep in front of an elevator without pressing the button to call it to their floor? Does he fail to notice the soft luminosity of the round button with the "down" arrow on it, indicating that it has already been pressed? Where does this arrogant jerk get off acting like he's some kind of elevator-calling-god, here to save the day for the poor index-fingerless souls so desperate for his intervention? I swear, there's gotta be a million of these people (and I'm betting at least a dozen of them will read this post with a snarky smirk and a twinkle in their eye as they throw back a swig of warm malt liquor - that's how these schmucks get their kicks...pressing already pressed elevator buttons and drinking tepid alcoholic beverages). It's pure insanity, but as I write this, I'm beginning to fear that I'm the only one who has noticed this ridiculous trend, or maybe the only one who cares. I think mankind would do well to put up a new sign right above the "no smoking" and "no firearms" signs.


Soon, society is going to have to come up with a new phrase to replace "common sense," because it's pretty hard to find these days, and usually when something is hard to find, we call it rare - not common. Rare sense. I like that a lot better.