The Days of Marble Steps

BY DESIGNING Skyscrapers with a revolutionary new "vertical" alignment to replace the old horizontal models, architects have eliminated the need for workers to roll around on their sides or secure their papers messily to their horizontal desks. Yet with these great advances came the most heinous impediment to human happiness since the legalization of codscallops--the elevator. Nowhere is this devil-device more prevalent than in the corporate world of Wall Street.

Elevators, the scourge of mankind, run rampant in the corporate world--a world where sweaty ugly people are forced by omnipresent hell-machines into unnatural proximity, their most aggravating habits torturously magnified in confinement.

Elevators tend to turn the most well-adjusted, law-abiding citizens into grotesque incarnations of festering evil. know, I was there...

Wall Street, Summer 1986:

I'm waiting for the elevator. There is an enormously fat woman standing next to me, and I don't like her. I sense that she posesses none of the human qualities that I adore, such as the ability not to slobber profusely, not to smoke in unventilated areas, and not to mistakenly press elevator buttons other than the one she desires.

The door swings open, I step inside and press 27 quickly. Just as I think my escape is assured, the woman squeezes her body between the closing doors, forcing them to swing open in deference to her protruding belly. I then watch in horror as she attempts to press the 20th floor button. She hits 17, then 19, 22, 24, 26, 18, and then 12. I resolve that people whose fingers cannot function according to their will should ask for assistance in elevators, otherwise they deserve to die.

AS I PLOT the murder, I begin to wonder if perhaps I'm being a bit hasty. Do I simply hate everyone who gets in an elevator with me? I wave my hands, dissipating enough smoke so that I can see to some degree the woman's face through the haze.

Without warning I am struck with a sickening revelation that flares me into a furious rage. Grabbing her lapels, I slam her against the elevator wall.

"Damn it, woman. You were hired by the elevator company to annoy me, weren't you? Admit it, she-demon spawn of Satan! Admit it or you die!"

"Yes! I admit it! It's true, I needed the money...cough, cough, snot, snot, puff, puff, and for some strange reason they offered me this job..."

"What about the man with the ferocious dog yesterday, and the man with terminally contagious leprosy the day before? What about them? Talk, damn you!"

AT THE COST of millions, elevator companies are hell-bent on undertaking the most heinous practical joke ever. Combing the world's fraternity alumni lists and fast-food restaurants for the most unpleasant people in existence, the elevator companies hire these monoliths to populate the elevators of American cities. Bonuses are awarded for employees who are able to shake their bodies and shout things like, "OH NO! IT'S SNAPPED! WE'RE GONNA FALL! AHHHHH!"

There are rumors that many of the top elevator executives are Russian defectors. They say it's just a coincidence. Ha! Do they think we can be duped so easily? Americans must defend themselves. Join me in returning to the good old days of marble staircases and horizontal sky-scrapers. We must find alternate technologies before it is too late--please donate money to the Harvard Scientist Research Committee where they are currently developing a complicated see-saw apparatus on which yuppies can stand and bound pleasantly to their jobs when that fat lady is pushed out onto the other end.