You know who hates my stairs, the three flights leading up to my apartment?
Everyone.
Like, for example, every guest I’ve ever had. People show up here for parties, and as they reach the main level landing they invariably say something clever along the lines of “Whew.” Usually, it’s a call for a drink, very quickly, since the apparently Everest-like climb has made them extremely thirsty.
Then they realize that if they want to go to the roofdeck, it’s another two flights. Usually they sit down after that.
Another example: delivery guys. They trudge heavily up the stairs holding a rapidly cooling bag of food, and then shoot me a look that says, in Mandarin, “if I had known you wanted me to climb three flights of stairs, I would have opened up your moo shu and spit right into it.” So I overtip them.
But no one hates my stairs as much as movers. From the time that I moved in, I never ever had a mover who did not remark upon the heinousness of the task with which I have charged them — to carry heavy pieces of furniture and boxes up and down three or four flights of stairs. They stop now and then, breathe out heavily, and say, always, the same thing. “Man, that’s a lot of stairs.”
I understand their feelings (both legitimate and an unsubtle attempt to wheedle a larger gratuity at the end of the day), but it always bothers me a little. If it weren’t for the stairs, I wouldn’t need so many movers. The very fact that there are so many stairs is what has created the need for the employment.
It’s as if I was at the dentist, and he looked at me and said, “man, teeth. I am sooo sick of effing teeth.”
