Paul the Critic

Part 1: The Elevator

Paul was a critic. That’s the only word for him. Of course there are many words you could use to describe him, but “critic” seams to do him the most justice. He couldn’t walk past a person on the street without passing judgment on what the person was wearing or how the person was walking or stereotyping the person into a specific category slot. If they had stereotyping classes, Paul would be the professor passing out the degrees on graduation day. When he was younger, in his childhood days, he had diagramed out a sort of tree of stereotypes, kind of like a family tree, where it branches out into different categories. Only it wasn’t a tree, more like a coin organizer on paper. You slot a person in at the top and eventually the person falls down through the different categories until he lands in his precise stereotype. He thought it was very clever at the time; at one point he had over one hundred and fifty different people copied down into their certain stereotype, but now he was above that. Besides, he was smart enough to remember where each person went without having to copy them down on paper, and he was getting rather quick at slotting them through the stereotyping machine mentally; no need at all to use the primitive paper method.

For example, walking through the bookstore, he may happen to spot a glance at a boy sitting in Indian style next to the sci-fi row of books, a rather plump figure with a pair of wide rimmed glasses, face buried in a huge fantasy novel. In a second, Paul would have him slotted through.

Family class: Geek. Subclass: sci-fi/fantasy nerd. Subsubclass: Fat kid with glasses. Finale result, stereotype is: Fat kid with glasses. Paul had noticed over the years, that if the person makes it to the sci-fy/fantasy nerd class, the person has a fifty-fifty percent chance of being a fat kid with glasses. This all takes place before the second even passes by, and after Paul has figured someone out, he will refer to them by stereotype. For instance, if a person asked “Who’s the boy over there?”, Paul would reply “You mean the fat kid with glasses?”.

This is rude, and Paul would be the first to admit it, but truthfully, he didn’t care. In fact, if he would have passed himself on the street, he would have probably placed himself somewhere in the snood family class. Being as he was critic, he decided to follow the occupation of critic. And that brings us to the present, the elevator.

He pushed the first floor button and chewed on his lip as he waited for the doors to shut. There were two elevators to choose from, one was brand new, just replaced, the other one was older. He had chosen the older one because the newer one was always packed out with people. Paul liked to be alone. The elevator dinged loudly as it began to descend. He was on duty tonight, and he was on his way to the Bell'uccello Opera House. He could never understand why people had to titled everything with a foreign name; after all, this was America. Couldn’t they just title stuff something that was actually pronounceable?

People often would say that his articles were too harsh, but to Paul the whole purpose of being a critic was to be critical. There was always something to pick at if you looked hard enough. Suddenly the elevator stopped. Paul rolled his eyes. The door opened. A girl walked in, and in her first step she sort of half stumbled on her heeled shoe.

“Uh”, she grunted, (well, a very high pitched grunt,) as she fixed her shoe back on. Paul raised an eyebrow. She rose back up. She had a curly brown hair cut shorter and was wearing a nice little suit with a skirt.

“Oh, hi,” she said, with a voice that sounded like a character from Bambi. “I didn’t notice you.”

“You know there is another elevator don’t you?” Paul said glumly.

“Your cute,” she giggled. Everything she said was a half giggle. Then her mind computed the question. “Oh, the other one? It’s too crowded in there.” She answered as the doors closed behind her. The elevator began to descend; it was slower than the newer one. Only 13 floors to go, he thought. They stood there without saying a word for a few, all to short, seconds.

“I haven’t been having a very good day today.” she started, “I forgot my cell phone.”

Did I ask? He thought.

“I keep imagining that my cell phone’s vibrating, but when I reach down to answer, it’s not there.” She continued, “I have to turn it on vibrate usually because I’m not supposed to use it at work. I usually text Lucy through the day; it helps me not to get bored. Oh, my names Laura, and my friend’s name is Lucy. I haven’t had a chance to text her all day long.” She talked very quickly to be able to say all these facts with nine floors left to go. He had had her slotted through his mental stereotyping machine the second she had boarded the elevator.

Family class: Ditsy girl. Subclass: Blond at the roots. Subsubclass: Chatterbox.

“I haven’t even seen her since lunch.” She said. Then she looked at him wishfully.

“Do you have a cell phone?”

“Uh, no.” He said. It wasn’t a ‘No I don’t have one on me.’ type of “no”, it was a ‘Not a chance!’ type of “no”.

“Oh,” She started up again. “Did you forget yours to? You must be having a bad day to.”

“Well,” he replied, “it wasn’t so bad until I got on the elevator.”

“Oh,” she said, obviously confused. She wasn’t the brightest bulb. Then she got sidetracked.

“What’s your name?”

“Paul.” He mumbled.

“What is it?” She asked again, louder.

He looked at her squarely. “My name is Paul.”

“Oh, Paul. That’s a nice name.” She replied. Paul didn’t really think his name was all that nice; he thought it was rather boring, but he figured it was up to him to do the best he could to make it an interesting name by being an interesting person.

“You’re cute.” She said again. Paul didn’t know whether to hide his head underneath a rock, or get plastic surgery. He detested the word cute.

“Kind of like my guy. He’s cute to.” She continued; she just wouldn’t stop.

“I can imagine.” Paul said, freshly.

“His name’s Darius. Isn’t that a cute name?”

“Well, I wouldn’t exactly put it on the top ten list.” He replied.

“Oh.” She said; she didn’t get the joke.

Seven more floors. Paul thought; he spotted something on the ground, a piece of paper, no, a ticket. Oh? His ticket to the Bell'uccello Opera House, How could I have dropped it? He thought, bending down to swipe it of the ground.

“Oh, my ticket!” Exclaimed the chatterbox, I must of dropped it when I slipped. She grabbed hold of it, but Paul wouldn’t let it go.

“Uh, I’m pretty sure this is my ticket.” He said.

“Well, if you’d move your thumb I could tell.” She replied.” My ticket number is row 11, seat 44, booth 4.”

Paul held it in sheer pride for a moment and then with his right hand reached in his pocket and flipped opened his wallet. His ticket sat neatly in a card slot. Finally he let go.

“Thanks,” she said. “I remembered my number because they sat me in the critic’s row with all the other critics.”

Before Paul could compute what she had said, the elevator stopped.

“Oh, are we done already?” She said. The dial was on the forth floor.
Someone else must be boarding our jolly little jaunt Paul thought, but the doors didn’t open. They waited. The doors still didn’t open.

“This cannot be happening.” He said through clenched teeth.

“What?” She asked. “Oh, is it stuck? Oh, no! I’m afraid of elevators as it is, and we don’t even have cell phones.”

He reached into his suit pocket and pulled out his cell phone.

“Oh!” she said as he flipped it open. “You found your phone; I thought you forgot it.”

“I guess not.” He said.

“It flips open, that’s cute.” She said again. She obviously had a rather small vocabulary.

“No reception.” He grumbled. Okay, now i really am having a bad day, he thought as he pushed the alarm button.

To Be Continued…

Next Time, Part 2: Stuck in an Elevator with the Chatterbox