I work on the 9th floor of an office building so I have a lot of first hand experience with poor elevator etiquette.  BUT before I launch into a tirade against the people riding up and down in my building let me focus on the “Riggins” part of this “Me Myself & Riggins” blog.

I have very little experience of Riggins and elevators.  This is a good thing as the experience I have isn’t great.  For being such a big guy Riggins is a giant scardy cat.  It’s no surprise an elevator ride with him would cause me nothing but grief.  The Petco by my house requires me to park underground and then find a way up with Riggins in tow.  The escalator is out of the question and the stairs require to go “the long” way around and even they aren’t great since you can see through to the ground and that freaks Riggins out.  So I decided to take the elevator.  Best of the worse.  The ride up wasn’t horrific since he didn’t know what was going on.  He got in the elevator casually but didn’t fight it much.  Then he took a STANCE  in the middle.  All 4 legs out.  Head down.  Un-moving due to terror.  After shopping I headed back to the elevator where, upon seeing the contraption, he put on the breaks and wiggled back and out of his seatbelt/leash.  Leaving me more panicked them him as he was now inches from the worse drivers in America.  I put his seatbelt back on and tried to push him in … didn’t work … did manage to fully entertain the two older gentleman watching from a bench.  So we had to go the long way to the stairs!

Taking a big dog on an elevator — poor elevator etiquette.

Now back to the humans and my daily horror of having to deal with them while confined in a small space.  Here is a list, based on my experience, of things you should and/or should not do while waiting for or riding the elevator:

– If I’m in the elevator happily riding up/down on my own and you and your significant other get in with me, don’t make out the entire “ride.”  This just happened to me moments ago.  It wasn’t fun.  Fair warning … the next couple to do this I will kick in the shins.

– If you are waiting for the elevator and the up and/or down light is already on noting that the elevator has been called for don’t push your way through the mass of people to push it again.  You aren’t doing anything more than pissing me off.

– If you are male you need to allow the female members of the elevator riders to get on or get off before you.  I say this as a feminist and realize that is contradictory and I don’t care.  If you push your way ahead of me you look like an ass.  Probably because you are.

– If I have pushed the button to call the elevator and then you show up and then the car shows up I get to go on first.  You should enter the elevator (minus the dude last rule) in the order you showed up for it.  I’ve made a mental list of who showed up when in my head and I expect that same ranking to be followed into the elevator.  Pushing your way in first is useless as, no matter what, we are all stuck in this box for the next few seconds.  The difference is now you will be taking that ride with me glaring at you in total hatred.

– Don’t wear perfume/cologne.  Seriously.  Did you swim in it?  Do you think that makes you smell better in some way.  You are foul.  Take a bath so you won’t give me and the other riders a migraine.

Now you know.  You can now fully experience riding an elevator without upsetting others around you!  You can think me later.