"Going Down?"

My office is on the 9th floor of the downtown business tower. Generally, I take the stairs. Nine flights of stairs a few times a day is good for woman my age.

The other day, however, I was tired and loaded down with a bit of "baggage" so I opted for the elevator.

I was enjoying the ride down when the elevator abruptly stopped on the fifth floor. Now the fifth floor has been locked off for months. It's been under construction (or reconstruction) and the contractors didn't want anyone accidentally wandering on to the "site". Needless to say, I was a bit surprised to see the doors opening.

Imagine my further surprise when I was greeted by another ANGRY MAN! And this time he was clearly angry with me.

"What are you doing in the service elevator?" he growled.

I realized that to get off on the fifth floor might actually be like jumping into a black hole and I really had no where else to go so I held my ground, shrugged my shoulders, smiled my biggest "dumb old lady smile" and muttered, "Is this the service elevator? This isn't a service elevator...what?" I looked as sweet and confused as possible and waited for him to BACK OFF!

But he shoved his cart in the door and yelled at me again..."What are you doing in the service elevator?!!?" The thought occurred to me that I could have made it down and up the stairs twice by now and this guy was not anything I was going to deal with rationally at the end of the day.

I put my fist on the close door button, shoved the cart out with my left foot, peeked around the boxes and calmly replied, "Going down."