Quick…name the person who originally said, “Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.”

The past couple of weeks, I’ve been getting back to an early-morning workout routine. I’ve been taking it easy, so that I don’t make the knee and foot pains bad, but I’ve been getting up early a few days a week to exercise. I decided that today, instead of exercise, I’d get to work early to work on a big project.

I didn’t get less sleep than I have on other days, so I don’t know why I was so out of it when I got to work, but out of it, I definitely was.

I parked the car and decided against the stairs. I’d done some pretty intense workouts the prevoius two days and wanted to give my legs a break. So I went to the elevator and pressed the Up button. The elevator showed up, I got on, and then it went…DOWN. Confusion point #1: I thought I pressed the UP button?

A security guy got on the elevator and pressed the button for the 1st floor, so up we go. He gets off, the elevator closes, and…nothing. It does nothing. Confusion point #2: why isn’t the elevator moving?

I look up and realize the button I’d pushed to get me to the floor I work on wasn’t lit. Confusion point #3: didn’t I push the button for my floor?

So, I do what any normal person would do. I pushed my floor button again. No light. Again. No light. Again. No light.

Now I’m really confused. Why won’t the button stay lit? Worried the elevator DID move and I’m stuck on the elevator (note: I never felt it move after we reached the 1st floor, but I could have been mistaken), I press the Open Doors button. Half-expecting to see a wall, I instead see…the 1st floor. I press the Close Doors button. THEN I press the button for my floor. (See? It was DIFFERENT.) Nothing.

Open Doors. Look out. Close Doors. Press Button. No light. Repeat.

Review the definition of insanity…again.

Open Doors. Looks out. GET OUT. Let doors shut BEHIND me. Press the Up button to call a DIFFERENT elevator (because obviously, that one was broken). No light. Press the Up button to call an elevator again. Elevator doors open. I look at them. They close. I decide the elevator has something against me.

I take the stairs.

As I went to the stairs, I saw a guy heading to the elevators. “Good luck,” I think to myself. “You won’t ever get them to work for you! They’re BROKEN. See you on the stairs, buddy.”

Only…I never hear the door to the stairs open. NOW, I’m irritated. How’d he get the elevator to work?!

I relayed the story to a co-worker later in the day. She reminded me that when you show up outside of the building core hours, you need to swipe your badge in the elevator so it knows to let you go to any floor of the building.

DOH. Foiled again by security systems. (Sadly, I had figured this point out before when needing to get into the building AFTER hours, but it never seemed to occur to me there would be BEFORE hours building hours.)

P.S. Benjamin Franklin.