All This Science, I Don’t Understand

Item the first: Not all cars have automatic transmissions. Some of us old farts (and gear heads) drive something called a manual transmission or a "stick shift". If you've gone to movies like "The Fast and the Furious", any Bond movie, "Bourne Identity" or any film featuring race cars, you have seen the stick in action. It requires the use of a clutch and a gear stick to manually change the gear ratios in your engine, making use of said ratios to gain or reduce speed. With me? What this means in practical terms is that when we are all driving up a spiral ramp in a parking garage, I have nothing slower than first gear, unless you want to count rolling backwards. DO NOT, repeat, do not pound your brakes on the top of the spiral when you are driving in front of me. Although I keep a respectful distance from your rear fender, there is really nothing else I can do except stick it in neutral and play heel toe with the clutch and the brake and pray that I do NOT roll backward into the jackass who has his front grill stuck to my back bumper like I'm going to...
to do what? We are all in a line on a spiral parking ramp. What the fuck does he think I'm going to do? Pass the car in front of me, and thereby win the very last space in the lot?

Item the second: An elevator is fairly old technology by now. It should not be beyond the average person to understand how it works. However, this morning I learned that is not the case. So in an effort to help those recently deposited in the 21st century by a time/space worm hole, I will explain.

The elevator button only needs to be pressed once. If it is lit, it has already been pressed, and pounding on it will not make the elevator switch directions or arrive faster.

If the big arrow over the elevator door is lit up in green and pointing up, that means the elevator is going to go up. If the big arrow over the elevator door is lit up in red and pointing down, that means the elevator is going to go down. There are no other choices. It isn't trying to fuck with you by pointing up and then going down.

Once the doors open for you, you should enter the elevator and move to the back. Or to the side, if you are the first one in, and there is nobody else there. It is helpful to all the other people trying to get on the elevator to hold. the. door. open. Or you can press the button on the control panel that says "Door Open" and it will hold the door open for others. It actually speeds things up when the doors aren't shutting on people. Also? Moving to the rear of the compartment also speeds up the loading process because people don't have to shove around your fat ass to get into the elevator. The elevator is a public transit device and as such is designed to hold many people, not just you.

While I'm on the subject of packing people into small moving spaces, let's try the same concept out on busses and trains. If there is a door, go through it and keep moving. To the middle of the car. Standing in a doorway prevents others from getting on or off, slows things up, is discourteous and generally just lame.

Thank you. This ends today's lesson in modern technology.