Lunch

There's never anything graceful about negotiating the elevators at work. The up and down buttons always seem to have burned-out bulbs, so if someone else is already standing there it's impossible to tell if they're going in your direction, or even if they're planning to get on the elevator at all. Getting onto the elevator is a challenge in itself as the doors are unforgiving. Shoving your foot in the way of the closing-too-soon doors is most likely going to result in scuffed shoes, bruised feet and, chances are, the doors won't re-open. Then you're left pulling your foot out of the still-closing doors.

This afternoon I shared the elevator with two guys who stepped on on seven, one floor below me. As we descended to the lobby the two guys began discussing the rice that was apparently expanding in their bellies. The cute one, the one who looks like the boys I loved in Texas, boys who drank Lone Star and watched NASCAR and struggled with their sexuality, took a Nerf ball out of his coat pocket and began bouncing it against the certificate of inspection framed on the elevator wall. Just as I began preparing my insults for when the ball ricocheted off the edge of frame and onto my head, NASCAR must have had the same idea, because he stopped bouncing the ball, and placed it back into his pocket.

When the elevator doors opened again--this time on the first floor--I rushed out, past NASCAR and security and all of the managers sitting at a table in the lobby, and toward my shot of whiskey at the bar across the street.