Elevator God

While boarding the elevator after work en route to the ground floor, I blessed it with the appellation "Lobby Express". Whereupon, others assured me that this now meant that this elevator would stop at every intermediate floor, whether there were waiting passengers or not.

As luck would have it, we made it to the Lobby without a single stop, and I was congratulated for my little prayer to the Elevator God. This set me to thinking what really determines how elevators operate. After some research, this is what I found out.

In the Beginning of Creation (about 2600 BC, according to the Falwellian Calendar), the Lord Creator turned to all of the lesser and greater archangels, and the angels low and high, and He distributed all of the tasks which each might oversee for all eternity.

Michael was assigned to tend to the sick, and watch over grocers, sailors and solders. Gabriel became the prince of fire, and presided over thunder and the ripening of fruits. Lucifer began his career as the "light-bearer", before his more well-known reassignment as Prince of Darkness.

In this manner, patron saints for almost every conceivable activity or entity were assigned and delegated, freeing the Creator for much loftier endeavors. There are spiritual administrators for trees, balls of fire, wounded or sick animals, birds, and there is hardly any creature or thing remaining which does not have some heavenly representation.

Being both prescient and omniscient, the Heavenly Father and his minions were not daunted by the prospects of human technology, or of any other things which might not yet exist. In the natural scheme of things, there is a spiritual niche for battleships, electron microscopes, spent uranium, and politically correct personal computers.

However, when Elisha Graves Otis invented the automatic safety elevator in 1864, this caused great consternation among the archangels. As still another one of man's devices which defies gravity, they saw that this popular elevator device would be subject to severe perils, as well as poor ventilation and slip and fall hazards. They asked: "What about elevators?"

By this time, even the lesser angels had full plates, as anybody in the corporate workplace could have predicted.

The Creator turned to Lucifer, saying, "What about you, Lucifer? This looks like it might be right up your alley."

But Lucifer would have none of it, citing the Balkans, slavery , volcanoes and earthquakes as his current high-priority, high-visibility projects.

Thus it was decided. There would be no Elevator God. Elevators can do anything they damn well please.

Alex Forbes 1-5-2000