I walked into my apartment building’s elevator today and there was a couple in there serving up a tasty dish of awkward ravioli, a tender awkward shell stuffed with awkwardness and marinated in uncomfortable sauce. First, they were ravaging each other as I entered. Second, they took intermission to dish out a polite “hello” before resuming their two-act, er, play. Yes. Hello. It is a pleasure to walk from my devoutly Jewish home and into your porno flick. Neither I nor their 6 year-old son, who by the way was there, and six, and THEIR SON, really appreciated it. I think we were both hoping the elevator cable would snap just so we’d have something to talk about.

The couple added the proverbial cherry on top (yes, on top of the ravioli–that’s how awkward this was) by getting out on the same floor as me and accompanying me down the hallway, which was much, much longer than I remembered it. In a splendid triumph of the human spirit, they continued to make out while walking, leaving their son to fall lockstep with me behind them as shown:

I imagine that somewhere there’s a cabal of elevator design madmen who meet in a secret laboratory and scheme about how to make elevators even more fertile for awkwardness.

NOOB MADMAN: Mirrors. Wall mirrors, ceiling mirrors, floor mirrors, door mirrors. No matter where they look, the other person is always staring back at them.

(murmurs of skepticism)

SEASONED EVIL GENIUS: Attach two elevator cars, make the shared wall a one-way mirror and make sure both sides know about it.

(applause; design work begins)

In my ideal world, you get on the elevator, there are stacks of pencils and paper in one corner, and a voice on the intercom asks you a brainteaser, say, factor the polynomial 3×2-5x+4, or devise a viable exit strategy for Iraq that preserves the tenuous balance of power between Shiites and Sunnis without admitting defeat on the international stage. You now have a plausible reason to be doing something other than staring uncomfortably at the person next to you or pretending to be enthralled by the current floor light. And if you choose foreplay over peace, you just look like a jerk (unless, of course, it’s foreplay *for* peace).

As a bonus, you also solve the most pressing diplomatic crisis of our time. But that’s just the cherry on top.