It was early on a weekday morning, and two friends were delighted to discover that they happened to be arriving at a downtown Bethesda building at the same time.
“You’re going to yoga too!” one of them greeted the other.
“Yes, I came early to get a good spot,” said the other.
As they entered the building, they discovered they weren’t the only early risers. Half a dozen sober, fit-looking individuals carrying rolled up mats were just entering the elevator.
One of the friends began to dart forward, to catch the cable-drawn ride. On impulse, the other friend opened a door to the stairwell and cried, “Race you!”
With a giddy laugh, the first woman (they were both women, both in their forties) jumped into the elevator and hastily pressed the “close door” button.
Also laughing, the second woman began sprinting up the first set of gray concrete steps. Her water bottle sloshed, soaking her hand. Her yoga mat began to slip out from beneath her arm. “Come on, come on,” she murmured to herself, chuckling at the ludicrousness of it all. Still, she wanted to win.
In the silent elevator, meanwhile, the first woman glanced around at her fellow passengers, inviting them to share the joke: Isn’t it ridiculous, two grown women racing to the fourth floor?
To her mingled amusement and mortification, not one of the sober, fit-looking individuals would catch her eye. Oops, she thought, and smothered a mad giggle. Stop giggling, she thought, and almost did it again. Competition had that effect on her.
Motherhood was also to blame, she reckoned: She and the woman who was furiously running up the stairs both had spent years playing spirited games with children and were accustomed to deploying speed and agility should anyone dare them to do it.
The rising elevator made a surging sound through the cinderblock walls of the stairwell. The other woman was on floor three when she heard it, close by. She put on a burst of speed, reached the top floor, yanked open the door, and was hit with a gust of patchouli. The lobby was still mostly empty.
“Hah!” she announced to the calm, smiling front desk attendant.
“You made it,” the attendant said in a friendly way. This was probably nothing new to her. People probably turned up panting and exultant half an hour early all the time.
At that point, the elevator opened.
“Darn it!” cried the second-place finisher, as she emerged.
“I can’t believe I cared so much about winning,” laughed the gold medalist.
“I can’t believe I was praying that no one would want to get off on any other floor. I was so caught up in the moment I think I would have tried bodily to stop them!”
The lobby was becoming crowded now, as the elevator disgorged fresh tranches of fit-looking persons. Many of them were younger than the two racers, and all of them looked graver and more purposeful.
“We’d better go get our places,” the first friend said.
“Yes,” agreed the second. “Also, I think both of us need to get out more.”
They laughed, and went into the studio.
Meghan Cox Gurdon’s column appears on Sunday and Thursday. She can be contacted at [email protected].
