It says, ‘Please do not press this button again.’

Today I discovered that years of dealing with it has still not caused this pet peeve to go away.

The call button is lit, I know it’s lit because I pushed it. Do you, kind stranger, believe that I am merely standing here waiting for an elevator that I haven’t even called for. Do you think that I’m a blissfully ignorant moron? Do you perhaps think that I only thought I pressed the call button instead lightly grazing it with insufficient pressure to activate it?

Is it I who am completely unaware of your magical abilities to press a button that has already been pressed and through the power of your miraculous touch cause the underlying mechanism of that button to be activated with a force the likes of which it has never been activated before, and surely never will be again?

Sadly I am witness to the truth over and over again, you are cursed, gentle one, cursed to live in a world alone, without another soul to keep you company. I’m easily made aware of this by the fact that you rush to enter the elevator car before me, regardless of the fact that I was standing here first. I note how you try to get out at each stop of the car even though it isn’t your floor, but due to your cursed state, it is inconceivable that the elevator could stop at any floor that you yourself didn’t request. This also explains why you won’t move out of the way of anyone else when the doors open out onto their floor, or why you barrel right into people trying to get on the elevator even though you’re trying to exit on the wrong floor.

I get it now… and yet it still pisses me off.