DC Etiquette #11: Be a huge cock when someone is trying to be nice to you.

For those who give a damn (i.e. my mother, if she were to read this) I took a brief holiday sabbatical from blogging about the douchebaggery of DC. Not to worry, within my first few days of returning to this great nation's capital, I had a top notch dbag experience.

Standing on the ground floor of a hospital, waiting to go up to the top floor, one of those insanely sweet old black women struck up conversation with me. You know exactly the type I'm talking about, not the AH!!-ghetto-black-lady-who-will-sass-me-if-I-don't-ask-her-what-floor-she's-getting-off-at elevator type, the unbelievably-kind-old-little-black-lady-who-smiles-at-everyone-she-meets. Seeing as I'm strikingly beautiful, she started off our bonding convo with one simple question, "Girl, you look real tired! You tired???" When I busted out laughing, she continued with, "Girl, you know what you need? You need to go home, draw a bath, then put your feet up, and have someone else make you a hot chocolate." I continued to laugh and agree with sweet old black lady, and when the elevator arrived to our ground floor, we boarded together, all smiles.

The doors next opened one floor up, on the first floor (as you'd imagine). On boarded a slew of med students with their overseeing attending, as well as approximately three other miscellaneous passengers en route to visit family members or on their own way to an appointment. My sweet black lady friend and the large cart she was pushing and myself all shuffled to the very rear of the elevator to make room for our new 6 or 7 med student companions and additional 4 other passengers.

When the elevator stopped on the 2nd floor to let out a passenger en route to visit family, all the med students shuffled off to yield to said passenger, and my little Aunt Jemima said, "God bless ya'll, have a great day." Sweet as she could fucking be. And then the med students re-piled onto the elevator.

The trusty ancient elevator again stopped on the 3rd floor, for no apparent reason, and all the med students again, shuffled off the elevator to allow anyone behind them to get off. At this point, again, Aunt Jemima said, "God bless, have a great day!" and all the med students, much to their chagrin, shuffled again, back on to the elevator. Upon the realization that the med students had been getting off and on the elevator to make room for her and her cart, she said, "Oh thank you sweeties, but I'm not getting off til the 5th floor, thank you, thank you."

At this point, some self-important, socially inept, pretentious dickhead motherfucker says to sweet little Aunt Jemima, "Yeah you'd better be getting off."

His tone, I assure you, was solemn, which can be confirmed by the uncomfortable silence that then filled the elevator as we slowly continued upward. Outraged, that some little shit med student could be rude to my new friend, Aunt Jemima, I leaned over to her and "whispered" (by whispered I mean nearly shouted), "I think it would be appropriate if you ran him off the elevator with your cart at the next stop."

At this point, the entire elevator, med students, overseeing attending, and random passengers alike all burst out laughing. I want you to know that I know my remark wasn't really all that hilarious. But I also want you to know that everyone in the elevator also hated this dbag so much for being an insufferable asshole that you would've thought I was fucking Robin Williams (or someone funnier).

The awkward ride ensued for another floor, during which said dbag med student's coloring grew brilliantly red from his neck to his forehead. Fucking little shit, being rude to my poor little Aunt Jemima who was only trying to bless his day with joy. Not like God ever listens to black peoples' (cite: Haiti, as a concept/country) prayers, but hey, it's great to be optimistic.
This is what Aunt Jemima looks like. No, jk, not at all, but you have to admit this is a funny photo.

DC Etiquette #1: It's a great idea to charge onto an elevator before letting its passengers off first.

I work on the top floor of my building. This scintillating introductory sentence to my personal experiences with DC Etiquette, as I'd like to call it, is relevant to my personal trying tale from an idle, rainy, Tuesday trip down to the ground floor, as I had a first hand experience with the assholery that is DC elevator riding etiquette.

Allow me to begin.

After waiting a solid 5 minutes for the elevator to finish its stops on every floor of the building on the way up to my floor (which, allow me to remind you, is quite a long time in elevator waiting land, as our elevators are a far cry from "zippy"), the familiar arrival ding sounded and the doors hobbled open at a speed every old man in Florida could out-walk, I noted a middle aged man standing smack dab in the middle of the elevator, seeming poised to exit. I waited a brief moment to allow him to exit, during which period he only stared at me with the look of the subject of one of Chris Hanen's To Catch a Predator episodes just prior to the arrival of the camera crew, through wire rimmed glasses poised on a face boasting a thick, perverted old man mustache.

"...Going down?" I thought it pertinent to ask, wasn't sure if I should run back to grab my rape whistle before stepping into the elevator with him, or if I should wait for him to finish his perving, then let him out of the elevator before charging onward.

"You're on the top floor." the observant, mustached sexual predator informed me.

I nodded, purposefully not engaging the mustached sexual predator in conversation so as to avoid any attempts at conversation on the slow, painful coast down to the ground floor. However, my anti-social, stare at the floor, stand in the back corner of the elevator, conversation evasion tactics failed me, as the mustached sexual predator turned his body totally toward me and tried to casually position himself against the spot of wall directly next to me. Arms folded, he leaned in so as to more significantly violate my personal space, and with quite the sneer spreading across his face, he said, disparagingly, "You're on the top floor."

I seized the opportunity to try to bring conversation to a total halt with a clever reply:

"Yes."

"Where else were you going to go but down?"

Damnit, that didn't work. Alright, mustached offender, game on.

And so I informed him that I was taught to wait a moment before entering an elevator so as to afford others the opportunity to exit before stomping on. We quickly cleared up that I was not unsure of the number of floors in my workplace, but rather that I was merely attempting to be polite. He immediately straightened up and moved to the opposite corner of the elevator car. And when the doors opened to relieve us of our awkward journey, the woman waiting for the elevator on the ground floor came charging on before we had a chance to exit.




DC AREA ELEVATOR RIDERS: surely, you are familiar with the way boarding the metro goes in the morning. You wait for other riders to exit before boarding the train. Not only is this a bit of a common courtesy, but IT MAKES SENSE. Apply this rule to riding elevators, everywhere. Pausing .2 seconds for people riding the elevator to get off the elevator before you come barreling into the elevator with the urgency of a Jewish woman trying to get to the front of the line of Black Friday sales, will not significantly delay your journey to your end destination.