Do you remember those little plastic puzzles, the ones that are missing a piece and you have to keep shuffling the pieces around until you get them in the right order? Like these:
That's what it's like riding an elevator in the south.
Every morning I leave the parking garage and cross the street to the other parking garage, where they have an elevator for those of us who are too lazy to drag ourselves up the (very steep) hill to the main street.
So every day I get on with a bunch of other people on their way to work, and all the very genteel southern gentlemen refuse to get off before us 'little ladies'. The problem is that they have let us get on first, again, because they are gentlemen, and therefore we're all bunched together in the back of the elevator, and when it stops at the lobby we have to play an elaborate game of shuffle the puzzle pieces in order to uphold the fine southern tradition of keeping women in their place.
I have actually seen a guy get off the elevator to let the ladies out, then step back in before he got off himself, just to maintain his 'southern gentleman' cred. How do you do that and then not spend the rest of your day feeling completely ridiculous?
I know they're just trying to be polite. I know that. But seriously, dude, just get off the fucking elevator.