Escalating Conflict

You know, folks in this dog-eat-dog world need to embrace the little things in life that can provide a well-deserved breather.

I realized this today when I was in Library West on campus, proceeding up to the second story to use one of the (inexplicably often broken) water-free urinals on the second story. For those who avoid the library like the plague due to the masses of gabbing sorority chicks and braniacs, to get to the second story of the library one must first proceed up an escalator to get to the meat of the building.

It seems that whenever I’m making my way up these escalators, there’s always some toe-tapping kid behind me who takes exception to the fact that I remain sedentary on the escalators, waiting for the magical moving steps to whisk me up to the next level.

When this happens I feel sort of pressured to treat the escalator like an immobile staircase and climb it like some sort of health nut. Naturally, I do as I am tacitly expected, thus exerting myself – though unnecessarily – so that I can minimize any awkward feelings from the folks behind me.

Now, I’m not really overly concerned with the sacrifice of motion that I make for these people. What I’m most disturbed by is the fact that these people cannot fathom the notion of merely relaxing for ten seconds and letting the wonders of modern innovation make their lives a smidgen easier.

I think the world would be an infinitely better place if people would just accept any gift of mechanized relief that might arise in their path and take comfort in the wonders of the twenty first century.

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