Up the Down Staircase on the Stairway to Heaven

There I was in the back of a tiny delicatessen in an aisle jammed between racks of Italian pasta when the front door opened and an old man went up to the counter where the owner greeted him with a Hiya buddy, what’ll you have? The old man asked Where’re the stairs? What stairs, buddy? Why, the ones that go upstairs, the old man answered indignantly. There’s no upstairs, Pop, there’s only this one floor, the owner shot back condescendingly, then turned his back on the old man, who though standing motionless, now looked like he was descending some great unfathomable abyss. 

NB: Edited notebook entry, Seattle 1976.