Let me start by saying, lest my title offend anyone, that some of my favorite people are old people! But, the fact remains that Lis did some pretty effective thwarting of a couple senior citizens in the last 24 hours, once on purpose, once not so much.

First, the on purpose one (by the way, I’m certain to get some of these details wrong – let’s see if Lis can bear it and refrain from correcting me): After making our way through one of the many, many lines we faced yesterday, Lis said to me “Did you see that old man back there?” I said that I hadn’t, and she told me that she and said old man had been locked in some sort of butting-in-line battle – he had run to butt in line in front of her (and everyone behind them both) but she had managed to cut him off somehow and get ahead of him. “And the best part was that, once I was in front of him, I motioned a WHOLE BUNCH of people to go on ahead of us!” said my sweetie, smiling in delight at the memory of her sadistic generosity. “And then he got chosen for a full bag search.” More grinning.

Then, today, we were on the ship’s elevator, riding up from the 12th to the 15th deck. The elevator stopped at 14, and when the door opened a sweet older lady came forward and said “Going up?” I assumed that she was planning to get on and ride up to 15 with us and then go back down. In response, Lis exclaimed “It’s our floor!” and surged toward the door. The lady stepped back to let her pass (as one does when one is observing correct elevator behavior), and I said to Lis, “No, we’re going to 15.” Lis stopped in confusion and stood right at the doorway, blocking the woman from entering, and kept saying “What? What floor? What are we doing?” The lady stared in confusion (and not a little annoyance), Lis stayed rooted to her spot – and the door closed in the sweet lady’s face and off we went.

So I guess the moral of the story is that the transportation gods are fickle – sometimes you get appropriately punished for butting in line, and sometimes you get unfairly punished for trying to allow a crazy lady off an elevator.