Laniology

laniology:

I always meet interesting people on the elevator.

I don’t know about you, but in my experience, every few days there is someone who refuses to obey the social law that requires people to stare mindlessly at the door in front of them or the changing numbers above them until the doors open again, releasing them from the uncomfortable silence and unfamiliar people.

I’m not complaining. I look forward to it. I often get on an elevator full of people and try to guess who it’ll be each time.

Most of the time I’m wrong.

But anyway I’m riding back up to the 12th floor, struggling with the giant box my mom sent me in the mail that’s full of stuff I forgot at home and a box of raisinettes. The sound of giggling girls catches my attention and once I conclude that they aren’t laughing at my unfortunate-ness, the observation of my four elevator mates’ begins.

Two guys, two girls. They giggle, they talk about some…stuff. Ok I guess I wasn’t paying that much attention but I was too focused on the fact that my arms weren’t long enough to fully grasp the box comfortably, to be a super creeper.

The girls get off at a lower floor, say goodbye to the boys and yell inaudible instructions to them as they continue down the hall and the elevator doors begin to close.

“What did they say?” boy 1 asks boy 2.

“Dude I don’t know.” boy 2 returned with a look that we all often get when we’re faced with any mystery of the opposite sex no matter how insignificant. 

“Do you know what they said?” boy 1 says to me. 

Here we go, I think, with the excitement of a prospective story to tell Lauren later. (we both seem to always have good elevator stories.)

“No, sorry,” I answered.

“Women.” he says, shaking his head and looking at me like I’m a dude who’s supposed to relate or something.

I can then literally feel the bad joke coming because I know he realizes that:

1. I am in fact a woman, supplying him with enough irony to be corny.

2. Because I couldn’t supply him with an answer to his question, he is now left to pick up his hanging invitation of a stranger into his conversation.

“They’re like Rubik’s cubes…you spend hours trying to figure them out but you never can,” he says laughing.

Bingo. Humor is definitely his exit strategy.

He looks up at me again like he’s expecting me to agree with him. Is this a part of the joke? I was seriously beginning to question.

“Um, alright,” I say with a laugh that probably sounds fake, but I was genuinely amused.

I hadn’t heard that one before and he was probably twice as ironic as he intended to be because the little Lizzie McGuire-esque, cartoon version of me, in my head was shaking hers and thinking the same thing about him. 

“See you later” I promised as they got off on their floor.

I couldn’t help but think of Will Smith in The Pursuit of Happyness and the scene where he completed a Rubik’s cube in like 30 seconds. I wonder if he understands women.

Probably not, because despite Will Smith’s sheer awesomeness I can pretty much bet there isn’t a man alive who can fully solve the puzzle that is female.

 And we’d like to keep it that way. ;)