The New Paper Column: Lift

The residence hall I live in is called Third Avenue North, and while it is famous for many things, it is probably most famous for its notoriously unreliable lift.

This is not an exaggeration.

Taking the lift in Third Avenue North is like being on one of those Fear Factor episodes, where blindfolded people have to pick and eat a random dish.

There are many different possible outcomes, but nine out of ten of those outcomes are bad to varying degrees.

The Third Avenue North Lift (Of Death), for example, has been known to scare lift-takers by grinding to a halt, and then jolting, before going back to normal.

It has also been known to ignore its circuit board’s instructions, and simply meander up and down endlessly until it decides to stop.

These, however, are not the worst of the possible scenarios.

The Worst Third Avenue North Lift Scenario is when it simply throws a hissy fit and decides to stop working altogether.

Many people would probably call this a lift breakdown, which is fairly harmless in the grand scheme of things.

Those people would be wrong.

This is because when the Third Avenue North Lift decides to break down, it does not just break down.

I do not quite understand the technical aspects of it, but for some reason when the lift breaks down the emergency button fails to work as well.

In addition, the Third Avenue North Lift must have a fearsome reputation at the local repair shop, because a Third Avenue North Lift Breakdown takes roughly two hours on average to fix.

In the meantime, there is nothing a person can do except swear (again) never to take the lift, and make friends with whoever else is in the lift.

This, of course, usually turns out to be either the guy with the yellow Mohawk, or the girl whose vocabulary consists solely of ‘awesome’ and ‘that’s so spicy’.

This is probably the reason people who are allotted rooms above the sixth floor at Third Avenue North develop such healthy leg muscles by the end of the academic year, but if the lift is notoriously unreliable, I am equally notoriously lazy.

Given those two things, I have talked to many people of many different persuasions over the year.

There have been many Kodak moments of newfound understanding.

I have found, for example, that it is entirely possible to use the word ‘sweeeeet’ six hundred times a day and still be a fairly intelligent person.

I have also found, for example, that is it entirely possible for an otherwise fairly intelligent person to think that dark eyes are disturbing and wrong.

If there is one thing I have truly learnt, it is that Third Avenue North’s residents are just as unreliable as its lift, and sometimes just as surprising.

Sweeping generalizations about Americans or Asians or the younger or older generations are just that: sweeping generalizations.

Notoriously unreliable, and inconveniently so, and you only learn something when they break down and leave you scrambling.