Abigail M. Schilling

The elevator in our building is a bit of hazard zone. It's really unclassifiable. See, there are always children running around and they're usually sickly because they're coming from or going to the doctor. And also, they're usually crying and not because they're sick but because their brother pressed the elevator button first.

I gear up whenever I leave the office and go into vertical mode. Vertical mode involves holding all peripherals directly above my head, much like one would do when forging a river.

Today, Courtney and I were on our way back up from the pharmacy where we special candy that you can only get at little pharmacies like ours when we encountered a really really sad child accompanied by three adults.

He was really sad, little child tears streaming down his little child face. I was in vertical mode so I couldn't offer him my Rocky Road and besides his hands were full of stickers. And the three adults kinda scared me.

"It's okay! You have stickers!" Courtney said, trying to cheer him up.

One of the adults informed us that he had just received his flu shot and thus the crying. Courtney tried to convince him that it was totally worth it--he got stickers! Us adults, we don't get stickers! One of the other adults agreed, saying, "yeah, they just shoot us up."

"Not me!" I said, quietly enough so the kid wouldn't here. "That's the best part of being an adult. I can choose whether or not to get shots. I haven't received a shot in years."