My long-awaited Costa Brava trip has sadly been called off at the last minute. No reports of sunshine, cliffs and beaches just yet. So I thought "what's the opposite of sunshine, cliffs and beaches?" and, given that the vast majority of Spaniards – and this guiri too – live in apartments, not houses, I came up with this brief introduction to Elevator Protocol in the Hispanic World, in the form of a few rules:
1. As you are standing saying goodbye to your friend on the eleventh floor, with your foot in the door so the elevator doesn’t leave, remember the person who has been waiting on the ground floor for ten minutes. That clicking in your ears is not imaginary – it’s the person downstairs striking the door with her key, reminding you that she’s still there.
2. In the early evenings, the elevators of Spain are busy with people taking their daily rubbish out. If you’re waiting for the elevator and you someone emerges holding two bags of rubbish, do not assume that he’s going out for the evening with his rubbish and just jump in and go. Wait until he’s deposited his rubbish and come back to the elevator. Whether you wait or not says a lot about you as a person.
3. Always ask which floor the person waiting with you is getting out at. This prevents uncomfortable and possibly unwelcome intimacies as you shuffle round one another in a confined space.
4. If you are bored during your elevator journey and want to write graffiti, please make sure the graffiti you write will in some way enhance the lives of your readers.
5. Please remember to have a shower at some point within the 24 hours prior to your elevator journey, particularly between the months of April and October.
6. Please try to avoid breaking wind until you are in the vicinity of people who might appreciate your atmospheric contributions. Why waste them on strangers? There are pleasanter ways of leaving your small mark on history - blogging, for example.
If all this has whetted your appetite, you could visit the Revista del Ascensor, a visually breathtaking site dedicated to the world of elevators in Argentina. Any other contributions to my forthcoming treatise on Elevator Protocol in the Hispanic World?
--------