NOBODY likes being forced into close proximity with strangers in a lift. Here’s how to take the experience to new levels of awkwardness and discomfort.
Obstruct others
The confinement of a lift is ideal for intruding on personal space. Try standing exactly in the middle of the floor, ensuring you compromise everyone’s comfort. The other strategic locations in a lift are: (A) right up by the doors, forcing people to squirm past you to get in or out, and (B) in front of the buttons so people have to ask you to press them, giving you a feeling of great power and importance, often in your groin.
Interact
When packed into a lift most people will avoid eye contact and conversation. Don’t let this interfere with your mission. Loudly address strangers with an unnecessary ‘Hello!’ and ask lunchtime shoppers what items they’ve bought and how much they cost. If ignored, say ‘Charming!’ sarcastically, so that each subsequent tense second will feel like an eternity.
Fart
This classic film comedy moment always fails to raise a chuckle in reality, particularly if the smell makes people heave and get off at the next floor. To achieve maximum awkwardness you need to strike a balance between a noisy harmless fart, and a soundless but more noxious one. Try eating different foods and practise anal gas release techniques in the controlled environment of your car.
Phone a sexual partner
If your signal allows, why not have a very personal phone conversation with your partner, if applicable? This suggests you’re unduly proud of your unremarkable sexual success, which is pathetic and annoying. Move onto a seedy conversation about your sex life, so that everyone wishes the cables would snap and take them to an early grave. Graphic details are unnecessary, as forcing your fellow lift passengers to use their imaginations will make it worse, like a horror film that’s more terrifying because you only glimpse the monster.
Lie down
Space is at a premium in a busy lift, so why not lie down and occupy the space of four people? This transgresses social norms, but no one will tell you to get the f**k up, out of ludicrous politeness or a reasonable fear that you’re mentally unwell or on drugs. Note: Don’t try this in the office lift of a fossil fuel company like BP. People will think you’re from Just Stop Oil and before you know it you’ll be getting pummelled by bastard coppers who fancy a bit of Swampy-bashing.
Assault the senses
For maximum uncomfortableness look as if you’re about to cough or sneeze. There’s nothing worse in a confined space than someone spraying possibly-fatal, Covid-laden fluids about. Alternatively try developing extra-rancid coffee breath by only drinking espressos and not brushing your teeth for several days, or simply rub kebab meat under your armpits every morning. If someone is actually sick in the lift, rendering it useless for a day and making everyone walk up eight flights of stairs, take pride in a job well done.
