Lost Battle with an Unlikely Opponent

At the time of the incident, I was leaving work to meet someone for lunch. My ballet flats shuffled toward the south door of my building as I dug around in my Mary Poppins bag for car keys (the floor lamp and the bird cage kept knocking around inside and obscuring my view). Just when I thought I had found them, a gruff and cracking voice distracted me from my search.

“Do you work here?” My eyes moved from my purse down the hall to find a wrinkled man with silver hair in a wheelchair. The second floor receptionist, the one who normally sits near the exit I had planned to use, was missing. Do I lie? Do I walk past? Why did this grumpy guy have to be in a wheelchair? Only crappy people don’t help people in wheelchairs. Am I lousy human? Do I want to admit that to myself? Crap. I force a half smile. “Yes, I do. Can I help you?” “Where is insert boss’s name that I cannot type or a Google Alert will attract attack dogs to my blog’s office?” I point to the third floor in the opposite, adjacent corner. “Oh, it is upstairs in that corner of the building but you need to sign in at the front desk on the first floor and they will let him know you are here.” “Oh he knows I am supposed to be here. I am taking a tour.” “Oh, well, I am pretty sure that he will meet you at the front desk. Let’s go this direction….”

I start walking toward the north elevator but he had already pushed the button on the south elevator and was wheeling himself into it before I could stop him. “I’m going to go up this one. It is the third floor, you say?” “Yes. But you need a key card for access. If we use this other…” The doors close and I hop in before they shut completely. He begins to press the button for the top floor but it doesn’t light up. “Why isn’t this working?” “Well, you need a card to get to that floor on this elevator. Let me call the front desk to see if your party is down there.” “He said come to his office.”

Attempting to use my global directory to look up a number in an elevator proves fruitless. I lose my will to keep this man from getting to his former student turned CEO’s office. I swipe my card and we go to the third floor. He has to maneuver through a tangle of cubicles and narrow spaces to get to the office because we came the BACK WAY. He sighs on the second or third turn. I offer to push. He grunts at me. "Now turn left here," I say as I walk behind him. He wheels himself straight. Who is this guy?

After some wandering, we make it to the desk of the CEO’s assistant; I am happy to turn him over. “Hello, sir,” she smiles. “He is here for the tour. He thought he was supposed to come to the office,” I say. “Oh, well they are in the lobby.” I bolt back downstairs and off to my engagement, thinking about how I just got bullied by an eighty-year old man in a wheelchair.

The most amusing part about this whole story is that I never would have taken that from an ambulant visitor. I would have marched them to the front desk and told them to wait like everyone else but something about that confinement to a chair makes me a complete pushover. Which led me to a few important life truths that I have been exploring this week. Some are related and some are just general observations:

1. Old people do whatever they want. They are old and they might as well, right? (Handicapped people could do a bit of damage with this principle as well, if they were so inclined.)

2. Most people are really lousy listeners and could save themselves a lot of trouble if they would just be quiet and pay attention to other people.

3. No matter how often I correct her, my mom will always call Chinese dumplings, “potsuckers.”

4. Despite all logic people will post embarrassing and incriminating things on the internet.

5. Life is never boring. Just when you think you have everything under control a flying jackal will appear and attempt to sell you a set of knives or try and set you up with his brother who loves hockey.