Ten storeys for the 94 year old

I walk down the stairs this morning as both lifts are out and I encounter my 70 year old neighbour a couple of floors down helping her 94 year old mother down the steps. They are taking it very slowly, obviously, but then my neighbour says "It's easier on the way down. Going up is harder." Fear of personal issues is immediately replaced with fury that this shouldn't be happening to these pensioners.

I offer to help but we're going to be late for school again ("Just let me finish this lego car mummy.") but they understand and thank me anyway. An ambulance is waiting at the bottom to take great granny to hospital for a routine checkup.

On the way back I run into the lift engineer. "Are you going to fix both?"
"Well we're going to do the small one for now, get that running."
"Great but people need the big one too."
"There are too many problems with that one."
"Like what?"
"There's flooding, water runs into it, don't you hear it splashing around when you're in it?"
"You can do something though."
"It's not our problem, it's Camden's. We've been asking them for five years to sort it out and they don't do anything."
"Can't you do anything?"
He shrugs his shoulders and swings his head in that gesture that says 'where do I start?'
"I'll try later."
"Thanks, thanks alot."

A little way up the block I pass dad carrying his three year old daughter.
"It's a joke, isn't it?" I say.
"Kids apparantly. Yesterday. They were down at the bottom messing around with them. Someone called the security services, you know, and they called the police and they came in a van."
"Was this last night?"
"No, yesterday morning when I came back from dropping her off at nursery. They were all there."

My turn to swing my head. As time goes on I'm speechless.