Most of us have had this experience, you wait for an elevator during rush hour at the office and when one comes along its full and you have to wait for the next one. Of course, you just sigh and stand like an idiot, wondering if you should take the stairs instead.

A couple of flights of stairs I can handle but hauling my heavy derrière up three or more would be a challenge. I’d say that more than 6 would be almost impossible. Almost, I say, because I have indeed tried walking up 12 flights of stairs a few years ago … not a feat I’d care to repeat anytime soon.

It wasn’t always like this, you know. Thinking back to my schooling days, I remember walking up at least three flights of stairs several times a day. Up once in the morning, down once and up again during recess and the final descent after school. That was the very least, all without breaking a sweat.

Things remained the same in university. Walking up the stairs was the norm and unless you were going more than four floors up, it was just unimaginable to take the lift.

It’s just logic, really. You have X amount of time to get Y number of things done. Waiting for the lift would cut into your X resulting in less Y’s you can do. So, the less you tax your X, the more X you have for Y. Not really rocket science … unless you factor in T for the ambient temperature, V for the number of steps, N for the number of people walking down the stairs in the opposite direction, Nu for the number of people walking in the same direction … well, you get the picture.

Anyways, back to present time.

Just this morning I was in the lowest level of the basement parking, already late for work. Waited for probably 5 minutes for the lift to move through all floors (and there are only 6 floors in the building, so go figure!). Stepped into the empty lift and this is how the progression went …

B3 – Got into the lift and hit ‘1’

B2 – Lift doors opened, but nobody was there

B1 – Somebody else got into the lift

G – The passenger from B1 gets out and a new passenger gets in

1 – Got out, together with the passenger who alighted on G

No wonder it took the lift such a long time to reach the basement. It must have been stopping on each and every floor! It took me a good 7 or 8 minutes to get from B3 to the first floor, thanks to those people who couldn’t be bothered to walk up even one flight of stairs.

I know. I should have just taken the stairs to begin with. But if I did that, wouldn’t have anything to complain about today, now would I?