Elevator Etiquette

I'm visiting my sister at college. Apparently only people in Wisconsin know how to behave about elevators. General etiquette is that, if you're outside, you wait for the person ON the elevator to get OFF before you get on yourself. I think the idea behind that has to do with the fact that there's more space outside of the elevator than inside of it. Generally speaking. However, without fail, every time that I have been on the elevator with someone outside hopping on, they have proceed to mount the elevator. I mumble, "Sorry," simply because there has been a psuedo collision, and they'll say, "It's ok." I'm thinking -- NO IT'S NOT!! It's not ok that I'm appologizing and you're 'forgiving.' I learned the hard way to give preference to people ON the elevator.

I suppose there may be some leeway with these instances because there is only one of me, and few of them at most, and when I learned my elevator etiquette, the context was the airport. My family and I would be on our way to Florida to see my grandparents or some other destination [although most other places we drove]. We'd be rushing, bogged down with bags to be checked, worrying about who would take which carry on. Do mom and dad have their ID and our tickets? Are the girls still with us? [Of course, my sister and I were just excited -- we didn't worry about these stressful questions. Perhaps this added to the stress of our parents.] When we finally made it to the elevator, there was then the necessary squabble over who was to press which buttons. And if there were strangers around, who was to push the buttons for them? When it was my turn to push the outside button, that meant I was closest to get on first, which was another important aspect of our power battle. So I'd stand directly in front of the doors waiting for them to open. They would open. There would be other families with children as excited about elevator rides as my sister and I. There would be hurried business men. There would be foreigners coming to see America. [Foreigners would be more common in Florida, coming home, than in Wisconsin...] Who ever it was, I would try to rush on to the elevator to beat my sister. Then I'd feel the reprimanding grab of my father's firm hand on my flimsy shoulder pulling me back, suitcase, carry-on and all.

This happened without fail for years until I became mature enough to realize on my own the reason why I had been pulled back all those years. Now I only wish a wise father would restrain these college students as they burst past me onto the elevator.