Silly People

One of the fun things about delivering packages all day is getting to go inside the various buildings. It's like a tour of "things you could have done with your life." Oh, look: an architect. Or, what's this here? A businessman.

It's just interesting to see people in their natural habitat, doing things that I'll almost certainly never do. For instance, did you know there was a New York State fashion school? It's on W. 27, or somewhere down there. --An actual state-funded school for fashion. The Fashion Institute of Technology. --No joke.

The other crazy thing about the different buildings is the way they label the floors. I remember reading in one of those Feynman memoirs from way back when about how some of the buildings in New York don't label floor 13. This was old time Feynman memories, from before WWII, I think, so I always assumed that that kind of superstitious nonsense was a relic from the past.

But it isn't. The first time I saw an elevator go from floor 12, to 12A, to 14, I thought: ha, that's funny, they must've forgotten to change the label on the elevator, just like in the Feynman books. But then I saw it again, and again, and again. --All over town. Sometimes the floors go from 12 to 14. Or sometimes floor 13 is labeled 12A. This is really funny to me, because there isn't really any excuse for it. It's not as if they can say: "Oh, when this building was built people were more superstitious." Because all they would have to do is change the label.

I want to find somebody I can shake by the collar and say: Wake up! Floor thirteen still exists, dummy. You just aren't calling it 13.