Screaming At Strangers In Public Proves Ineffective Way To Elevate Your Request

(I am in the elevator in a building on my campus which I rarely set foot in, going to the fourth floor. The elevator stops on the third floor and a half-dozen people get off. There’s a fancily-dressed woman in her forties standing maybe ten feet away, looking a little bit confused. She looks at all the people leaving the elevator and going off, some walking right by her, but she doesn’t attempt to speak to any of them. After they’ve left, she looks at me, still in the elevator.)

Woman: “Do you know if there’s a restaurant in this building?”

(I pause as I think about it, but realize I just have no clue and shake my head.)

Me: “No, I don’t.”

(The elevator doors start to slide closed and I think nothing more of it. The woman then runs over to the elevator, forces the doors back open with her hands, and sticks her head in while looking at me very intently.)

Woman: *very frantically and unnecessarily loudly* “What? What?! I didn’t hear what you just said! WHAT DID YOU SAY?”

(Wide-eyed and alarmed, I rear back away from her.)

Me: “Uh. I don’t know. I said I don’t know. Sorry.”

(The woman stares at me for several beats, very skeptically, and in a kind of crazed way, while still forcibly holding the elevator doors open.)

Woman: “Oh. Well.”

(She stares at me skeptically some more, then finally, very reluctantly, steps back and lets the elevator doors go. I keep on looking at her in alarm, then start to repeatedly press the “close doors” button in the elevator to try to get away from her as fast as possible. Lady, really, I don’t care what your issues are, but the one person who’s stayed in the elevator, with the doors about to close, is really NOT the best person to try to ask for directions.)