People are nice. Often too nice. Like the stranger who holds the door open for you when you’re a stone’s throw away. Now I have to spend more energy pretending to hustle than I would’ve utilized opening the door myself. I guess I could really quicken my pace, but why should risk pulling a hammy just because this kind feller has depth perception issues.
Don’t get me wrong. I do appreciate the gesture. It spares me the inevitable attempt to push a pull-only door. As if running into the door you thought would open with all your weight leaning against it isn’t enough, there’s always that guy who chimes in, “you gotta pull it.”
“Thanks, buddy,” as I slowly remove my face from the now-fogged tempered glass. “My next move was to karate chop it open.”
To spare others of a similar fate, I often hold doors for others. They don’t seem to appreciate it as much when it’s a revolving door.
Revolving doors don’t make sense. I guess the thinking is why have the weight of one door standing between your customers and your products when you can have the weight of six doors as a barrier to profitability.
And it only gets worse.
We’ve all experienced the sheer panic when the free-loading creep jumps in your capsule last second. As his breath raises the hair on your neck, your fight or flight instincts kick in. You attempt to quicken the pace before realizing you can’t summon the necessary leverage because the guy you are convinced is a serial murderer has rendered you to a perfectly upright, awkward shuffle. All the sudden that course in physics about leverage doesn’t seem so trivial.
When you do muster the necessary force to slowly inch your way closer to survival, the rear door inevitably catches the serial killer’s heel. And your life flashes before your eyes.
I’ve held regular doors open for people, too. But no good deed goes unpunished. I inevitability end up with a caravan of freeloaders mooching off my generosity. The next five minutes becomes a scouting expedition for an appropriate-sized gap to drop the door. And when it finally arises, it’s a wounded veteran next in line.
“Thank you for your service,” I hurriedly say through the shutting door.
Elevator doors are probably the biggest test of our manners. A test we often fail.
You know what I’m talking about: When the elevator doors are closing as somebody is making a mad dash to get in. We mimic their panic while pretending to reach for the open door button. We feign disappointment as the door finally closes before they can lodge their hand between the shutting gates.
Once the process is complete, we relish in the fact that we saved seven seconds while at the same time spared ourselves the risk of saying something stupid.
“Sooo, you heading up? Right on.”
But occasionally our worst fears are realized—the hand penetrates the closing gates like a corpse’s decaying digits emerge from the grave in a horror movie. All the sudden the man we deemed too creepy to join us is angry. And you’re all alone in a windowless box.
My favorite kind of door is the automatic variety. It caters to my laziness and my lack of concern for others. I don’t have to guess push or pull nor do I feel guilty for not holding it open for anybody.
I do wonder why they have a warning on them, however—Caution: Automatic Door. I can’t imagine there was a complaint.
“I was heading for that door fully intending to run into it when all the sudden it opened, and now my nose isn’t broken. Tell you what, punch me in the face and we’ll call it even.”
What’s worse is the heavier-than-it-needs-to-be door that doesn’t budge when you give it a yank. That’s always humiliating.
“Either this place is closed at 1 p.m. or I’ll have to enlist Barry Bonds’s trainer/pharmacist before coming back.”
Suddenly, visiting an ED treatment center is only the second most embarrassing thing I’ve done that day.
Doors can be symbolic as well. An open door symbolizes endless possibility and promise. A locked door represents repression or a dead end. But neither metaphor considers context. Take your wife locking the bedroom door. If you’re outside the room, you’re out of luck. But if you’re inside the room, you might get lucky.
Perhaps the best metaphorical door of all is the one to this article.
It’s now officially closed.
