An Elevator with a Quirk

The elevator is one of two public elevators side by side at the Holiday Inn in Corpus Christi.

If you're on the third floor, which we are, and you walk up to the elevator bank and push the button to go down and the door to the elevator on the left opens with the arrow pointed down, you get an interesting ride. The elevator goes UP to the fifth floor, opens the door, closes the door, and then goes down to the first floor. Every time.

The first time this happens to you, you're surprised and try to decide if you got on an elevator that actually was in the process of going up. Maybe someone on the fifth floor pressed the call button. And you expect it to stop on three on its way down -- to pick you up -- but it doesn't.

The second time this happens, you're not as surprised. You have made sure to look at the direction the elevator arrows say you're going, but since you've taken this ride before, you're ready -- sort of.

By the third time, you think you have this all figured out. And sure enough, you're not disappointed. There's never anyone waiting on the fifth floor to get on. It's just what this particular elevator does.

Unless there is someone already on the elevator when you get on who is coming down from another floor. Then you just go down to the first floor.

So I've grown kind of fond of this elevator. When I push the down call button, I find myself hoping that the left elevator answers rather than the one on the right which just works like all other elevators. Finding an elevator with a quirk adds interest to what otherwise is routine.

Quirks -- the things that are unique and unexpected -- are one of the things that make people so interesting. If all of us just did everything the way everyone else does and the way everyone else always expects, our lives together would be awfully dull. Society does all it can to engineer the quirks out of people, but fortunately people don't engineer very well.

I'm sure someone will "fix" this elevator and take its quirk away. But wouldn't it be nice if we quit trying to "fix" each other and just enjoyed each other for who we are -- and especially for the quirks?