Walking- It is a simple thing
Walking is a simple thing, really it is. If you don’t have some sort of physical challenge (aren’t I PC) it should be a very easy thing for most people. You stand up and walk. Voila, there is forward motion and you are no longer serving as a poor excuse for a telephone pole, hat rack or paperweight.
“Jack, Jack, Jack” you say, “why the ranting about walking?”
The answer is simple. I tend to walk very quickly, especially in my office building where I want to go from the parking garage to the lobby to the elevator so that I can run up to my office and begin working. If I am going to be at the office I want to work otherwise there is no real purpose in my being there. And while I can wander around aimlessly with the best of them it doesn’t pay well, there are no benefits and it does get boring. Check that, it does have one benefit, endless vacation time, but again the pay is lousy and you can get the same thing by being unemployed. For that matter unemployment and walking aimlessly are probably considered to be the same thing. Someone check that out for me, I am still too tired to consider it.
Back to the rant at hand. When I park my car in the scary subterranean parking lot I want to get to the elevator and get out ASAP. I am not a dwarf or morlock, spending time in an underground parking lot is not my idea of a good time unless I am the star of some new action flick and in the middle of filming my chase scene or receiving information from Deep Throat that is of vital importance to the major news story I am about to break.
So this morning I park my car and head on over to the elevator. No one else is there and no one appears to be coming which is good. If I see you in the distance and you don’t start running for the elevator I am likely to let the doors close because it makes me crazy watching you shuffle over half awake with a hot cup of coffee that you are trying not to spill. And if I do let those doors close I am going to hope that I didn’t make eye contact because part of me is going to feel badly that I let the door close, after all did I really need to save 7 seconds.
Answer: Yes, I need those 7 seconds as they eventually add up and in no time at all I can say that I have accumulated 71.5 hours of time saved and to a guy like me that is substantial.
As I step into the elevator I notice a short woman who is holding a briefcase and is wearing an outfit that is just not working for her. The pants are too tight, the top too short and the shoes look like my son made them. Now he is an incredible talent, but he is not yet a master cobbler.
And something tells me that if I can see part of your bra and thong tied into rolls of flesh you are probably not the person to be wearing that outfit. Is that a knock against fat people? I suppose so, but only against fat people who haven’t figured out that wearing clothing that makes them look like a stuffed sausage is not attractive outside of Milwaukee, Cleveland and Green Bay. Price Check on Aisle 5.
Inside the elevator Madame Pants Too Tight has fortunately done us all a courtesy by not bathing in essence de cheap perfume and or Virginia Slims. It is a small area and we sadly have been down this road before. Finally we reach our destination, the lobby. Now the fine architects who designed this building set it up so that you have to take one set of elevators in and out of the garage and a different set to the offices on the various floors in the building.
The problem with this is that it is just far enough that the “slow walkers” cannot get there quickly but close enough that if you blow by them like Walter Payton you cannot help but end up closing the elevator doors in their face. And without being a complete jerk it is really hard not to feel guilty about that.
One day I am going to show up with some paint and draw lanes. Then we can designate a slow lane where they can amble along while I motor on by unfettered and free in the fast lane.
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