Human Cartoons On The Fourteenth Floor

November 3rd, 2002 Posted in 2002

While heading down to the lobby of my office building in the elevator, I watched a woman suddenly panic when the light on the “G” button went off. The lowest floor our elevator goes to is the fourteenth. Once the elevator hits the tenth floor, its sensors remind it that there will be no more stops, the “G” light goes off, and a further five seconds pass while the elevator slows to a gentle stop on the ground floor.

The woman I shared the elevator with, however, saw the light go off and immediately assumed we were in freefall. No floor light! Not stopping! No! She jabbed at the “G” button—but, since it was already three seconds from BEING at the ground level, the light didn’t go on.

The woman got more frantic, jabbing at the “G” button again and again. It struck me as one of the funniest displays of cartoon logic I’d ever seen from a three-dimensional person. It reminded me of the scene where Bugs Bunny, trapped in the cockpit of an airplane hurtling towards the Earth, stops the plane just feet from the ground by putting on the brakes.

It sounds kind of silly—but no less silly, I’d think, than what this woman was doing. “Oh no!” you could see her thought processes. “The cable’s snapped! We’re in freefall! Quickly—PRESS THE GROUND BUTTON!”

Seconds later, the elevator slowly eased its way to the ground floor. As the doors opened, the woman gave me a cocky look, as if to say “It’s a good thing I was here.” And thank God she was. I’d have never thought to press the button.