Normally, I opt for stairs. But having recently become my elderly mother's caregiver, I find myself traveling by elevator far more often than I would like. We visit a medical-office building at least once a week, and while it is always clean and organized--the building, but also the elevators--there are always more people than I am comfortable with--the elevators, but also the building. Still, she is too frail to be tramping up and down six flights of stairs.

I worked on the second floor of a two-story building for years and can count on the fingers of one hand how many times I used the elevator. (Not literally. I was not in the habit of noting to myself: "Okay, just walked up the stairs--must remember that." And the fact of the matter is, when I broke my knee, I used the elevator for the first two weeks after it happened. Should I say "nevermind" now?)

Still, I'm more of a stairman than an assman, um, lift man. (Don't know what's got into me!) For about six months, I was in the habit of walking the upper hallway, descending the stairs at one end, taking the downstairs hallway to the staircase at the opposite end of the building, and ascending them to return to the second floor. Repeat as necessary.