There are so many things for us to worry about these days. Will my taxes go up or down? Will I have a job next week? When will I be able to afford my own home? Will we get a racist bigot in the White House?
It's enough for anyone to be on a first name basis with their local telephone counselling service.
The last thing we need is one more straw of agitation on our already stress-laden backs.
So for the love of Donald Trump's comb-over, I am asking the world to please learn basic elevator etiquette. At least once a day I suppress the urge to reach over and flick the earlobe of the person in front of me in the elevator, because they don't know the basic rules that will ensure a peaceful and efficient vertical journey.
It's not hard. It doesn't require a degree in astrophysics. Elevator etiquette is simple and easy to remember.
Here are the 10 commandments of the elevator:
1. If you are the last person to have entered the elevator, HIT THE DAMN 'CLOSE DOOR' BUTTON! Standing jowl to jowl with a dozen people, staring like lobotomized cows out the open elevator door in awkward silence for 30 seconds, is not the best way to start the day.
2. For pity's sake have some patience. If you try to board the elevator while I'm trying to exit, I will knock you down. Just saying.
3. If you are about to use the elevator don't make a damn telephone call! If you spend the entire elevator ride hollering 'can you hear me, can you hear me, can you hear me now, what about now?' into your phone and a fellow passenger has forgotten to take their vitamins that morning, you're going to get your earlobe pulled.
4. No crop dusting! If you can feel a gaseous build up in your lower region and don't think you can hold it in until you reach the 15th floor, take the stairs. And don't think you'll get away with it. As with poker, most people have a 'fart-tell', whether it's a lean, a cough or a slight intake of breath. In a small metal box with half-a-dozen other people, they're going to know it was you.
5. If you wouldn't discuss a particular topic in front of your Nanna, don't bring it into the elevator. No one wants to know how many times you puked, who you woke up with or the noises he or she makes during sex. It's an elevator, not a confessional.
6. When someone tells you to 'get a room', they don't mean the mother-lovin' elevator! With apologies to Aerosmith, the sound of tongue-to-tongue gymnastics going on behind you when you're just trying to get to the lobby is enough to break rule number four, just to make it stop.
7. The obligation to hold the door for an approaching person wishing to use the elevator generally has a five-metre, or 15-foot, exclusion zone. If you're approaching an elevator and you're outside the zone, sorry, catch the next ride. If you're in an elevator and someone is within the zone and you deliberately let the doors close - you're a tool and karma may see the elevator crash to the basement killing you instantly.
8. If you're unlucky enough to become trapped in an elevator, don't panic. In most modern buildings, elevators have an emergency phone or intercom whereby you can alert the authorities of your predicament. Trust me, hanging suspended in a sealed metal box 10 stories up makes you a priority. And remember rule three: if you start trying to call for help on your cell phone in a stranded elevator -- 'can you hear me, can you hear me now...?' you will have your earlobe pulled. Multiple times.
9. Service elevators are for exactly that purpose. If you try to bring that load of day-old squid destined for the Cambodian Restaurant on the 30th floor into this elevator, I am seriously going to injure you.
10. And finally, in most states, no jury will convict an individual for rendering unconscious anyone who holds open elevator doors to finish a conversation they are having with someone not intending to take the elevator. Fact.
These laws are universal. They are set in stone. So please, for goodness sake, learn these rules or start taking the stairs.