Activities to pass time in elevators

Do you have small metal cubes in your building that groups of people occasionally stand in together for what feels like an extremely tame version of seven minutes in heaven? At my building we do.

Very small talk

How was your weekend? It's Thursday. 

Study the floor or gaze into the air in front of you

Still looks like a regular floor and regular air. Interesting.

Distract yourself with your phone

If you hold it close enough to your eyes you can pretend you're somewhere else. People in the elevator might still be able to see you though, I'm not sure.

Ask if your elevator-mates if they've ever been in an elevator accident.

This is the unexpected Best Thing Ever. Everyone has been in one or knows someone who has. What better place to tell these stories than inside an elevator? Who better to tell them to than strangers?

I only discovered this technique yesterday and already I've heard two stories about an elevator dropping a floor, one story about someone losing a foot, and one story about a subway. Subways aren't even elevators, but they come up, that's how good this conversation starter is.

And if we all start telling more horrific elevator accident stories to each other, eventually we're all going to start taking the stairs more, which is going to save our lives, and the world.

And then if that doesn't work try this.

10 million things in Portland: night food

I like Portland. Some people have never been. Visit Portland! Here are 4 of 10 million reasons you should. If it's the middle of the night and you are hungry it is really lucky that you found this.


Some people will tell you the best thing about Luc Lac is that it’s open until 4 am. These people are not to be trusted. After midnight they have a limited menu with no curry and you’re either going to get pho but be too tired to maneuver eating it or the next morning you’re going to have a vague memory of eating eight crispy rolls. Or you might have a vivid memory and that’s a lot worse.



Get the kind with pineapple, I can’t be held responsible for anything else you get and I can’t be held legally responsible for the pineapple unless you print out this blog post and have me sign it.



I have never eaten Voodoo donuts but I have been near it many times and you don’t even need to be near it to smell it. I can smell it right now. If you take a deep enough breath so can you. If you can eat donuts you should probably go, because it’s a Portland thing, and they have vegan ones, because that’s a Portland thing, and the lines are hours long which is a Portland thing so you're really getting your money's worth here.



My life has become a quest to figure out the next time I will get to eat Sizzle Pie. The great thing about Sizzle Pie in the summer is there is no air conditioning or fans or windows just all black and pizza ovens and it's a great opportunity to eat pizza while feeling like you are a pizza. I can't recommend it enough. I don't know how late Sizzle Pie is open but it's open as late as I've ever felt like eating pizza which is always.

no cavities is a triple-word score

She was definitely only listening to me to be polite. "Have you seen The Cove?" I asked.

She hadn't. It would have been a great time to stop talking but I didn't.

"I watched it last night. In the cove where they slaughter the dolphins, there's so much blood that the water looks like paint - just red paint with boats full of dolphins in it. That's what it looked like when I brushed this morning. I just wanted to give you a heads up."

My dental hygienist's name starts with H and ends with a bad hand in Scrabble. She was so, so, so sorry that it was 7:30 in the morning but I didn't mind at all. The way I see it I have to be somewhere at 7:30 every day and really the dentist is at least in the top ten.

tep ten places to be at 7:30
1. running
2. at the coast and there are one hundred killer whales
3. just waking up from staying overnight at a planetarium
4. road trip with my dog
5. getting a haircut
6. at work being super productive
7. swimming pool of money
8. the dentist
9. the airport
10. in bed having nightmares about dolphins

Especially my dentist, where there are enough luxury options to make it almost seem like the worst spa ever. Heated neck pillow? Massage chair? Sunglasses? Bitter mouthwash that makes your gums numb for thirty minutes? Sure, I'll take all of it.

Hsqqmkji likes toothbrushes made of organic materials, and she likes anyone from Minnesota, and she loved that I forgot to take my glasses off before the 3D x-ray so I looked like some sort of happy robotic skeleton nerd. "Everyone is going to get such a kick out of this." said Hmjjqtfm. She let me made me take all the floss I wanted.

Now my teeth look great and my neck feels really really cold.

Why I have a scar on my ankle

When I went in to get my spider bite looked at the doctor was a retired military doctor who was not going to take any funny business from girls with spider bites and at one point she even said “You’ve got yourself some ‘splainin’ to do.” I have wanted my whole life for someone to say that to me.

She loaded me up with medicine (“If I got to make the rules you’d be getting a lot more than this but they get after you for stupid little things like that.”) and she drew a crooked circle around the spider bite with a sharpie and she told me “DON’T let it get outside this line” so seriously that all I could say back was “Yes ma’am.” I have wanted my whole life to say that to someone.