Saturday, February 27, 2010

Who's on First....




My Dear Hubby deserves a medal in patience. Have you ever seen this classic clip with Abbott and Costello? This is what it's like to live with me.

I have a refrigerator magnet that says it all, at least for my long-suffering Dear Hubby who's been with me 36 years now. It says: "You can tell a Swede. You just can't tell them much." I don't know how many times I've caused that poor man to shake his head at me and say, "For someone so smart, how can you be so dense?!" Because I am. Dense.

A couple of days ago we went to a corporate center to a company where we had to sign some documents. I had the Mapquest directions in hand and navigated us to the building without any problem. As we walked into the huge main lobby I consulted the notes I'd taken and told Dear Hubby, "It's Suite 200 so we need to go to the second floor." So we found the elevator and got on and Dear Hubby pushed the "2" button. The doors stayed open so he pushed the button again. The doors slid shut. After what seemed an eternity the doors slid open again and I could see the number 2 etched in to each side of the door posts so I said, "We're on the 2nd floor now." "We are on the 2nd floor," Dear Hubby said back. I gave him kind of a weird look and said, "Yes, that's what I told you. We're on the 2nd floor." As I started to step off the elevator I said, "Boy, that was the quietest and smoothest elevator I've ever ridden on!" And he said, "That's because it didn't go anywhere." I stopped in my tracks and looked at him. "What do you mean?" I asked. "It went to the 2nd floor." "No," he rolled his eyes at me, "we're on the 2nd floor." "I know," I said, "because we just got there."

We each took an exasperated sigh and tried again.

"What I'm telling you," he explained ever-so-patiently, "is that we were on the 2nd floor to begin with. The reason you had such a smooth ride is because the elevator didn't go anywhere. There's another floor below us that's below ground."

The light bulb finally began to flicker.


Author Update: Linda brought it to my attention that "Aren't most floors underneath the ground the basement?" so I must explain that this is a building built into a hillside. The main doors to the lobby actually do open onto the 2nd floor. The floor underneath is the 1st floor, with huge windows looking out over the valley. Underneath that is the basement, haha!

6 comments:

Judy said...

TOO funny!

LadyFi said...

Oops! That is very funny!

Thanks for your visit to my blog. I'm actually a Brit living in Sweden...

Wander to the Wayside said...

I did something similar when I was cleaning an apartment every week in downtown Denver. I said to myself going in 'ok, I turned left into the parking garage, so when I leave I need to go right". And yet every time I would get lost and unable to get back to the highway because of all the one way streets. Then one night I was laying in bed, just about to go to sleep, and a light bulb went on. "Hmmm, I wonder...". And sure enough, the next week I paid attention, and what was happening was that the garage parking EXIT was on the total opposite side of the entrance of the building, so if I was turning right, I was turning to go in the wrong direction. I felt so stupid, because it had taken me about eight weeks to figure this out!

I don't think you have to be a Swede. You just have to be a human with lots on your mind!

And by the way, isn't a floor BELOW ground supposed to be "B" for basement?

Aion said...

That was waaaay too funny lol
Loved it! Thanks for the laugh!
Aion

Sandy said...

Depending on the building, some entrances are higher than others and you enter on a floor other than the first.

Jeanie said...

Life can be so confusing sometimes.