UPSANDDOWNS

My boyfriend spent more time in the elevator than he ever spent with me. This was my observation, and this was the theory I explained to him over breakfast. I told him that he worked on the 67th floor of a large building, and that the elvator ride from the lobby to his floor took, on average, one minute and 43 seconds. So to get up and down every day, it took him two minutes and 26 seconds. Now, I explained to him, I knew he smoked, which required at least three trips down from his office to the lobby everyday, which was another six trips in the lift, or ten minutes and 18 seconds, giving a daily total of twelve minutes and 45 seconds spent travelling in the elevator. As he finished his muffin, looking at his watch nervously (he too, it seemed was finally beginning to realise my point that time just adds up, I finished my analysis.

He would take one more elevator trip for lunch, plus one more, which I generously attributed to miscellaneous office tasks, bringing to a grand total the time my boyfriend spent in the elevator over a single day to fourteen minutes and ten seconds. So that meant--I explained to him as he downed the last of his coffee and made for the door--that he spent 70 minutes and fifty seconds every week travelling either up or down in an elevator!

I was about to tell him how many hours that came to in a whole year, but by that time we had reached his floor, the doors had opened, and he stepped out, pacing down the hallway like he was running late, like he had no time to spare.