Elevator Conversation

This conversation took place in the maybe 60 seconds it took us to get from 1st to 3rd floor of the medical building. You can say a lot in 60 seconds.

So I followed the cute little family with a hyper 5 year old (I'm guessing on the age) and a darling little girl, maybe two, cute little butt in denim shorts, pigtails. She started to grab my hand thinking I was her mom. I was charmed.

A Tom Cruise look-alike pharmacutical salesman jumped on at the last minute and we all looked at each other for a few seconds, then no one could think of anything to say. He looked down.

I spoke quietly: "you guys, just think if this elevator got stuck and we were on here for hours and we told each other all our secrets and got in huge dramatic fights and stuff."

Dead silence.

Then the salesman laughed and said, "that's the strangest thing I've ever heard on an elevator."

Me, thinking ("don't you ever watch TV?")

The young mother said, "I'm claustrophobic, I'd go nuts."

I said, "you guys, just think, she'd go nuts and the elevator would open on the third floor and we'd all be dead because she killed us in her phobic rage."

They all laughed, realizing I was harmless crazy. The young family got off on the second floor, and I traveled on with my new best friend.

I said, "has anybody ever told you you look like Tom Cruise?"

And he said, "All the time."

And I said, "Actually, you look better than Tom Cruise, because you're better dressed and not getting fat and your hairstyle is better."

He held the elevator door for me and laughed and said, "thanks, have a nice day."

And that's the story of my life, how you can get to know people really well, relatively speaking, in 60 seconds. Happens all the time. True story, every word.