Be Still My Heart...

The elevator in my building is fixed.
   Yes, FINALLY. It's been over a year since it gave up the ghost, and now it's repaired, inspected and ready to go up and down like an elevator should.
   I'm positively giddy, and I swear I squealed like a schoolgirl when I saw the inspector down in the garage pressing buttons and making things happen. Right now I'm a big fan of elevator inspectors. I almost asked him for his autograph. I'm thinking of putting his picture up on my bedroom wall next to my poster of Leif Garret.*
   I took my first ride just now, and it was all brand new, like the rosy blush of young love or your very first hit of crack, anything seemed possible. I wasn't taking the stairs like a chump, I was standing still, like Americans should, letting a machine do the work my legs had proved perfectly capable of doing until that very moment. Ah, good times, good times...
   I have to confess, though, the elevator car smelled. Not offensive, just stale. Like something that had been sitting unused for thirteen months, closed up and untouched. Like going into a storage unit you haven't opened for quite a while, that kind of stale. And a little damp, probably for the same reason. And I felt just the slightest bit claustrophobic, I didn't recall the elevator being so small. But still, it was a good visit.
   So now I have a decision to make every time I drive back into the garage. Do I take the stairs, which I have done every single day I've been here for over a year, or do I wimp out and take my old friend the elevator? I dearly love my old friend, and I miss him and his buzzing clanks, but I'm not so sure he was good for me. Never once did I decide to sit out the evening in the garage because I was too tired to climb the stairs, so there's no real reason I would absolutely NEED to use the elevator. I'm not feeble, not after a year of climbing the stairs every day. But I know that since my good buddy Elevator is ready to help me out, I'll probably use his services more often than not.
   Because I'm a lazy American, that's why. Don't you judge me, with your Chocodiles and your pork rinds and your NASCAR... Say, when is NASCAR coming back? February? Gotta stock up on Chocodiles now that the elevator is working again.



* 'Mom? Who's Leif Garret?'
He was like Shaun Cassidy or Rick Springfield.
  'Still not sure...'