Massachusetts Daily Collegian

A free and responsible press serving the UMass community since 1890

A free and responsible press serving the UMass community since 1890

Massachusetts Daily Collegian

A free and responsible press serving the UMass community since 1890

Massachusetts Daily Collegian

Stairs and elevators

Anger has grown deep in my soul ever since the W.E.B. DuBois Library lost one of its most precious commodities back in August. The wonderful multi-floor access device I am referring to caught a severe case of “cable snap” and shot up to the 27th floor, never to come down. Nobody was injured, but students since then haven’t learned a darned thing from this terrifying experience.

The middle elevator has broken indefinitely, and there hasn’t been enough money in the coffers to fix it. I thought that this unfortunate scenario would deter students from taking gross advantage of the library elevator system, but surprise, surprise – it hasn’t.

It’s bad enough that you ordinarily have to wait ten to fifteen minutes for an elevator. That said, nothing infuriates me more than getting into a packed elevator car and having to wait even longer as it stops on the second floor every time without fail to let out some lazy traveler.

Despite the fact that there are now fewer elevators and a longer wait time, people still feel compelled to insult those of us who have a greater need to use one. Mathematically, elevator abuse is completely illogical. Taking the stairs to traverse one single floor only requires one tenth of the time that it takes to actually wait for an elevator. On top of this, elevators are primarily an assistive tool for those who are handicapped. The last time I checked, laziness wasn’t a valid handicap.

It hurts to see people be that slothful, and I feel that most would agree with me. Whenever I see someone using an elevator to traverse one floor who doesn’t have a blatant physical disability, my first thought is to stick out a leg and trip them and then repeatedly close the elevator door on their ankles. At least then they’d have a good enough reason to use one.

Instead of doing that and subsequently having to make an appearance in court, I usually settle for making a snarky comment as the passenger leaves. Most of the other passengers inside the car will verbally concur, with chants of “You tell ’em,” and “I know, right?”

So I know at the very least that this problem doesn’t bother just me. I would like to offer a vague hypothesis of mine. I firmly believe that the broken elevator malfunctioned because its cables were weakened by too many students at one time wanting to traverse trivial vertical distances. I’m guessing that after they all got off, the cable let go dramatically, sending the counterweight to the bottom of the elevator shaft. After that ensuing mechanical failure, several lethargic students were temporarily stranded on the second floor. But, of course, I’m no engineer.

I know how satirical and bitter that sounds, but I can’t seem to stop thinking about it. In our privileged, wonderful, active society, one in three Americans is clinically obese, only a small percentage of people regularly exercise, and according to Morgan Spurlock (the creative mastermind behind the documentary “Super Size Me”), “Mobility has become such a chore that we rely on machines to do it for us.”

On top of this, I’d like to reiterate a horrifying fact – the elevator cable snapped, hurling the car up to the top floor at supersonic speed! If you were inside that elevator, library janitorial staff today would still be scraping what was left of you from the car’s roof with spatulas. Despite this, elevator usage has seemed to increase exponentially. To comically blow it out of proportion, the rate of increase has skyrocketed to a level much higher than the vertical takeoff velocity of the cursed fourth library elevator.

Even though the threat of a messy death is quite clear, people still flock towards these vertical beacons of human laziness. I have to give these people credit though; they really are brave. I wouldn’t risk my own life unless I had at least five floors between me and my goal, but these folks really are tempting fate fearlessly. It seems that elevators are being neglected by the burdened and handicapped, and embraced by the brave-yet-ridiculously-lethargic. That’s right; I’ve actually seen people rush to pack themselves into elevators before someone with a crutch or a cart full of books can get there in time.

In light of this, I’ve decided to take a stand. I’m no longer going to take the elevator in the DuBois Library. Every time I need to change floors while there, I will abstain from using the hellish machine burdened with the throngs of the lazy. The most rewarding part won’t be the incredible paintings in between every floor, but rather the fact that I will still be getting to my floor a lot quicker than the other people who chose their precious elevator.

One last thing. In case I haven’t convinced you to reconsider your elevator trip, consider this: An elevator’s lifespan is between 25 and 30 years. The DuBois Library was built in 1972. If you decide to push that button, you might also be pushing your luck. Are you feeling lucky?

Devon Courtney is a Collegian columnist. He can be reached at [email protected].

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