Lift and Elevate…

Watching life is a much loved avocation. The elevator never ceases to provide riveting opportunities. Specially the one to my office on the 22^nd floor in a busy building. It’s forever crowded with people entering and alighting constantly and the lift is never free. Too many people, too few lifts.

I watch, sometimes unobtrusively, at times voyeuristically and when occasion demands, brazenly the milieu that I’m trapped in an enclosed space with. Sometimes endlessly it seems (body odor people, body odor!) it’s wonderful to be in a multicultural society, having the fortuity to absorb different cultures and subtle and overt nuances.

There’s a new outfit that has taken up six floors of the building and this lot is the most interesting. They’re in real estate and they are dressed to kill. Like literally! The men are all in three piece suits and the waistcoat is colorful, the cravat, neck tie, pocket square brightly patterned silk that screams garish glamor. The folk are like their garb, loud and ostentatious.

Not much to comment about the women since they are much like the other of their ilk, impeccably turned out with the apparel, bags, shoes, watches, jewelry and sun glasses flaunting brands. Such a feast for the eyes. The ones who walk in solo fiddle with their phones or adjust their hemlines and necklines in the mirror that frames one wall of the lift. The men are pretty much the same minus the fiddling.

Those who enter in groups have loud conversations and I know the P&L of their companies as well as their bonus schemes too. It’s like they’re in their conference rooms discussing company policy. Completely oblivious that they are in a public space.

Earlier this week, as I was leaving office after a long day and even longer wait for the lift I entered an already full elevator. A quick glance around showed that I was the only female and I pulled out my phone, better finger than fiddle!

Obviously it was a cohesive group by the body language and banter. I didn’t bother with my usual scanning and resolutely kept my attention private until I heard someone say, “This morning I woke on the bitch”.

In a flash my nonchalance vanished, my interest piqued, I glanced upward and before I could glean the perpetrator, I heard someone else from across ask, “On the bridge?” By now I’m teeming with curiosity and there’s no way I’m going to miss out on the action here. The endless possibilities flashed quicker Haley’s comet as my imagination ran amok.

If they were going to discuss this in public, why should I pretend I’m deaf? So I raise my head and look around and there’s this Jamaican guy with big beautiful eyes that sparkled with honesty looking at the rest of them who are agog with curiosity and mouths open wide in wonder and some envy for sure and his expression changed visibly. You could see the understanding dawn on him and he enunciated verrrry slowly, “This morning… I Walk… on the Beach”.

An almost giggle escaped me and I quickly nosedived into my phone. The charged atmosphere dissolved in that instant of anticlimax and the lift reached the ground floor and we walked out and I overheard a few of them saying, “Dude, what were you thinking” and the repartee, “Like you weren’t”.

I carried the memory of those few minutes and continued to smile… lifted and elevated.