AT THE weekend I met the person I’d really like to be in 30 years’ time. Strangely it was a man, but hey, it is 2010.

That said, the fact he was a feller wasn’t the important bit, it was more the type of person he was.

And even though I only spent a few minutes with him, I know the world would be a much better place if there were more people like him in it.

So why was he so special? Was he a brain surgeon? Tireless charity worker?

No, he was…… (drum roll please)……. a 65-plus retiree with a wicked sense of humour.

On the weekend my friend and I were in a hotel heading back to our room after a leisurely Sunday breakfast.

When the elevator arrived it was a pretty full house, so we squeezed in and quickly turned to face the door, and as per life’s unofficial rules for elevator travel dropped our voices to that hushed tone usually reserved for funerals (or bitching about colleagues behind their back).

There we all were. Twelve strangers, eyes transfixed to the floor indicator above the door. You could almost hear the silent ‘in-head’ counting as we all watched the numbers light up. Two…three…four… five….. Then suddenly something completely unexpected happened.

As the elevator ‘dinged’ and the doors opened, a loud German voice suddenly boomed “Floor Six… Menswear”! Talk about a pin drop moment. No-one knew what to do or say.

Life’s unofficial rule book doesn’t have a chapter on what to do when someone breaks ‘elevator etiquette’! This kind of behaviour is virtually unheard of, let alone in a posh London hotel!

So, in only what could be described as an awkward moment with a capital A, the door slid closed, everyone’s eyes jumped back to that spot above the door, and once again silence resumed. Seven… eight…. nine. ‘Ding’!

Then exactly as before, just as the doors slid open a voice boomed “Floor nine! Ladies wear, menswear and smalls’!

It was like we were in a badly dubbed German version of Are You Being Served?

We couldn’t help ourselves, the sniggers became chuckles, but then just like putting a lid down on a music box, as soon as the doors were closed, everything went quiet again.

All eyes once again looked up, 10… 11…. 12. ‘Ding!’. At this point you could cut the air with a knife. I knew we were all secretly hoping he would do it again, and he didn’t disappoint. “Floor 12, homeware, dinnerware and fancy linens”.

Again the lift erupted into laughter, but then the unthinkable happened. People actually turned around and made eye contact within the confines of an elevator to smile at each other and acknowledge the culprit.

Unfortunately our room was on the twelfth floor, so the last words I heard as the doors slid closed were “Going up, next stop lingerie”.

Maybe it was just one of those ‘you had to be there moments’. But there was no denying his playful manner left 12 strangers feeling a lot more ‘up’ than ‘down’.