I guess it was Wednesday night when down in the Rosslyn underground another individual and I had incidence with the street elevator. He was already there waiting when I walked up. When it had finished its descent, we entered just as normal and, after pressing the appropriate button, the doors closed in front of us. A loud continuous sound commenced to piercing our ears in a most painful way. My fellow occupant looked to me seemingly in search of a solution - we were not going anywhere. Over the loud drone and the music that was coming in through his headphones, he told me that he believed that the outside set of doors had failed to close and that he had seen this happen on a separate occasion. He said he would try to hit another button to see if that would perhaps do anything for our situation and it didn't when he tried it. He next held the door open button and that worked just fine. He suggested that we should take the escalator since the elevator was obviously not functioning properly, I said that I couldn't do that because I had already swiped my fare card. Besides, I'm really scared of heights (the escalator at Rosslyn is the third longest in the world). We exited anyway, not knowing what else to do. Just as I had finished explaining my rationale for taking the elevator, it started up. We both stood there watching it rise in amazement. Eventually it returned packed with metro riders. We both entered the elevator and finally I broke the silence, "You know, had we never have been in this circumstance we'd never have said a word to one another." He replied, "Yeah, you would have just stood there with your eyes closed." I corrected him, I was actually planning on staring down at my bottle of water, pretending to read the label as I had started to do earlier before discovering the elevator's temperament that evening. He said, "I would have never known what your voice sounded like." I agreed and added, "That's the area [we live in] for you." We both departed our separate ways, each a little more thoughtful of those we encounter.
-- CrystalShiloh @ 11:04 AM