Phobias can be helpful....?

   I never thought I would say this, but this past weekend I learned that some phobias can actually keep you healthy. Over the weekend I was out of town working with a group of girls on an event, one of which was slightly claustrophobic and terrified of elevators.  After a little jesting we found out why, she had been stuck in them 11 times!! Whoa. I think I would be terrified too at that point!
    Good thing there were only 5 floors in our hotel, but of course we were on the 5th floor. So after the first couple times, we all realized this wasn't a joke, she was really going to walk up and down the stairs every time we had to go to the room. At first I thought "she's nuts!...we're exhausted right after a 10 hour road trip. I am not walking up the stairs." (Plus someone had to take the luggage up the elevator, right?)
  After that (and when we had boxes of stuff to move) I started taking the stairs with her, partially for security in numbers, and partially out of curiosity and the want to get some exercise over the weekend.
  The first couple of flights went well, then its a good burn, your excited to get your legs and butt in shape for the summer....then you start breathing a little heavy, and its always the last flight that almost gets you. But after your at the top, your not as gross and sweaty as you thought you would be, you feel better about the cookie you just ate, and you feel like a good friend/person just for keeping someone company that would have otherwise felt left out, self conscience, and sort of shunned all for taking the healthy option of stairs rather than the elevator. By the end of the weekend we were all taking them and feeling good about it.
  But let me warn you ahead of time, some places are not very stair friendly. The hotel we were staying in (which you would think would be very alert and open of where their safe exit way of stairs would be) had the entrance of their stairs on the street, outside, around the corner from the hotel lobby (hence the 'security in numbers' thing I said earlier). The front desk people even looked at us like we were crazy when we asked where the stairs were, and in another building the stairs were obviously not on the same level as far as the upscale decor as the rest of the place (seriously reminded me of grade school or dorm stairs rather than the upscale 5 star resort around them).
   But if you can take some weird looks, you'll actually get some exercise on your vacay and not have to take too much time out of your day to do it!