We've all done it. Maybe we're talking on our cell, punching out a text or searching our MP3 player for the right song. Maybe we're daydreaming, lost in thought or even relatively focused. We reach for the door and push, only to be stopped hard in our tracks. Confused, we pull on the handle to no avail. Most of us will push again. Then, usually in small lettering, we read, ?please use other door.? More often than not, the ?other door? is directly adjacent, part of the French-door-styled ensemble popularly used as entrances.



Some of these doors don't even give us the courtesy of the ?please use other door? sign. Sure, signage will instruct in two or three languages that we must pull or push. There's a blaring ?open? sign or some poster about beer specials. There might even be business hours hanging from a suction cup on the inside, but, alas, nothing that tells us which door they want us to use. Experienced with doors, we usually figure it out. We find the unlocked door as easily as a trained rat finds the cheese in some cardboard maze, complete with scientists hovering over with white lab coats, clipboards and smug smirks.

What's amazing is these doors continually get built day after day with no obvious purpose. Sure, there are hinges and handles. They are doors and yet, for whatever reason, building owners want only one out of two possible ports to actually work as a door. It's as if they want to funnel their customers in like oil into an engine, careful not to spill a single drop.

Logically, architects and engineers would by now understand that the double door system is not very cost effective. The price of a door is much higher than the cost of a wall and, to top it off, the amount of energy loss through a door is astronomical in comparison to a solid, insulated wall. So the only possible explanation to this rash of locked doors is undoubtedly based in some experiment. Scientists are hiding behind hidden camera with white lab coats, clipboards and smug smirks. It's probably some sort of test to judge human patience or problem solving abilities. One thing's for sure, they laugh every time we're stopped in our tracks.