My Lift Encounter

Lifts in College Square are some of the most high-tech machines you would ever find. They take you up to the eighth floor in well under twenty seconds, and give you near-zero-G-force experience when it reaches its destination. If you take them daily just like me, you would agree with me that they beat the Superman Escape hands down any time.

Actually I should say, lifts in College Square are the most high-tech machines when they are working - that is, when their doors close successfully and when they don't take you to the unknown, dark territory of lower ground. There are zillions of times when the lift doors just refuse to close for eternity, or when they take you down to the not-supposed-to-be-reachable lower ground level when you actually pressed ground floor. And you won't tell me you are thinking of complaining the situation to the reception - they take three weeks to repair the smallest thing, and the walls of our apartments are made of plywood.

Of course one would naturally think that the second type of malfunction (the dark lower ground) is the more annoying or terrorizing experience of the two cases. Before today, I thought so too. I remember Boon Phiaw once claimed that College Square residents who have never visited the infamous dungeon were to be disqualified as a CS resident, or at the very least, be looked at with utmost disbelief. I was qualified about one week ago, but it was neither very interesting or what I wanted to talk about today. I want to talk about the lift doors which won't budge for eternity.

Earlier today, I was coming back from a table tennis session, together with Boon Phiaw and Yong Chin. We stay in the same block in College Square, and we have to take a lift up to where we live (Yong Chin and I on the ninth floor, Boon Phiaw on the first). When we entered the lift, there was already a young lady in the lift who was kind enough to wait for us instead of going up by herself. So we entered the lift, and we pressed one and eight respectively. I caught a glimpse of the floor buttons, and there was already 1, 2 and 8. Apparently the girl was heading towards the second floor, and with that thought I leaned myself against the lift wall for some well-deserved relaxation.

And the lift doors wouldn't close. As usual. It's been like that since three days ago, so we knew very well that we only have to wait for a while for it to close eventually.

But the lady wasn't as patient as us. Guess what she did?

She pressed the "close door" button ten million times, like what everyone would do in the same situation. Butu the lift doors still wouldn't close.

She pressed "3".

What?! Does she think pressing 3 will help the lift close? The lift did close 5 seconds after that, but I was sure it has got nothing to do with the button 3. And now you are going to let us wait for one extra lift opening-closing sequence!

Alright, Yong Chin and I are forgiving people, we put it aside and continued to stand there saying nothing. After all, I heard her snicker to herself sheepishly, which I presumed to be a non-verbal apologetic manner. I wasn't expecting her to say sorry after all. 不知者无罪 marr...

Now the lift zoomed to Boon Phiaw's first floor, and Boon Phiaw left for his apartment gleefully. And the lift wouldn't close again. But by now, everyone should have known that all you have to do is to wait for a while and the doors will close in a moment. But guess what the lady did?

She pressed "4"!!!

If your eyes are bulging now, just imagine Yong Chin's and my eyes when we were there. Yes, among all the alternatives in the world, she chose to press 4! ARRGhhhhh!! After the previous episode as recent as 10 seconds ago, the decision made by her 100 billion neurons was to press 4 and let us suffer another waiting!!

^#Q@&*^^(*&@#($^^

*(**^@#($*&4#@(^^

We weren't cursing with our mouths, but the previous two paragraphs were definitely the dialogue in our mind when we witnessed the world's funniest lift video. We moved on and we did suffer some waiting after the lady fleed on the second floor.

At the end of the day, I could only think of the most apt quote from Albert Einstein:

Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.

Albert Einstein

End of story.