Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Awkwardness avoided

There's a really cute married couple who live down the hall from me. They own a cutish dachshund who they totally realize is spastic and crazy and they do all they can to avoid someone having conflict with the dog. (Dachshunds are notoriously overprotective of their families.) They live next door to the elevator. And they're nice in that "how you doin'" sort of way so I like them just fine. Lately they've been arguing and because our front doors are hollow, when waiting for the elevator you can hear everything. So I stand waiting for the elevator and listen to the poor girl plead for their marriage and he is very calm and I just feel bad that I can even hear it at all. SO... yesterday morning I'm waiting for the elevator. And I can hear them arguing. And I hear him say "I'm leaving" as I pray the elevator comes faster because the last thing I want is for the weirdness that will occur as I have just heard him leave his wife and we make small talk in the elevator. And then I hear her rushing to the front of the door to block him from leaving and I keep hoping the elevator comes quickly. And they argue some more and the elevator comes and while I'm waiting for the outer door to shut I've never been so happy to see the elevator as I've been at that moment.

(It has just dawned on me at this moment that I totally could've avoided the awkwardness by taking the stairs. But you know how it is when you have a regular routine in the morning. You can't seem to think to deviate from it.)

4 comments:

Stephen said...

Yuck... hearing the pain without any context :(

Peeved Michelle said...

Poor cute married couple.

Kate the Peon said...

Yeah, the stairs occurred to me too. :)

... said...

I was thinking about the stairs too about halfway through but then thought perhaps they weren't an option because you were carrying something or too high up...