The other day as I was walking into the building, I encountered some incredibly bizarre elevator etiquette, which reminded me of two other stories I've been meaning to post.
It's Not a Now-or-Never Thing...
The other morning, I was talking to Stephane on the phone as I came into my office building. I went through security, waited for the elevator, and got on board. Just before the doors closed, a very tall, very young man jumped (truly) on to the elevator and proceeded to physically barge into me in his hurry to push the button for his floor. I laughed immediately b/c I was so surprised at being bum-rushed on a State Department elevator, but I was still talking to Stephane, so I looked up at the guy with a clear 'You are a nutjob' expression and pointed at the other side of the elevator door -- where there is a second keypad (i.e., this dude could easily have just pushed a button over there and gotten to his destination without running me over). He looked at the keypad and looked back at me, still standing sort of close, and said, 'Oh. Sorry -- I guess I was a little too excited.' Because I am reasonably sure this person was an intern, I decided not to be too mean and just laughed at him again.
It's Not a Peephole
A few months ago, I was in the ladies room, doing what one does in the bathroom. I heard someone come into the bathroom and attempt to open my stall door (which was, of course, locked). Since there were two other unoccupied stalls available, I assumed the person would move on when they realized my stall was occupied. Imagine my surprise, then, when I looked up to see an eyeball peering through the crack between the stall door and the wall! The person said, 'OH! Sorry,' and moved on to the next stall. Just goes to show that passing a background check is not evidence of being a normal human being.
I Hate College Kids on the Sidewalk, Too.
Late last summer, I was taking my usual route from the office to the Metro, via the GWU campus. Which really just means I was walking through the streets of DC near my office, but since the campus is in the middle of Foggy Bottom, all pedestrians must suffer the throngs of college kids milling around the sidewalk. Apparently, the rats suffer, too. And one of them had had enough. As I was walking up the street, I saw a young college woman jogging and, just ahead of her, I saw what I thought was a squirrel with a tail problem. As I got closer, I saw that it was in fact a rat, which was sort of interesting b/c I had never seen a rat just out on the sidewalk like that. The girl jogger kept coming, the rat maintained his ground, and either girl jogger didn't notice the rat, or she thought he would move (I did), but either way, she just kept coming. Just as she reached the point where the rat needed to move or risk getting squashed, he jumped -- *toward*girl*jogger*. Not in a rabid, trying-to-bite way, but just in a I-was-here-first-and-I'm-not-scurrying-into-that-bush way. Girl jogger squealed and executed a highly entertaining series of hops and flails, while the rat gave chase for a good 5 feet or so, much to the delight of everyone except girl jogger. His job done, the rat finally did scurry into the bushes and, I presume, spent a happy evening tell all of his rat friends what he'd been up to.
