The Kazakh Step

Attention good readers!  There is a horrible inequity being perpetrated amongst us every day!  Everyday there are those that are raised up, while the majority find themselves cast low, equal only unto themselves in a world devoid of equality.

I speak, of course, of that injustice which is called the "Kazakh Step."  One p.  One e.  What is the Kazakh Step?  In every staircase there is one step which is different from all others in the set.  There is no pattern, no rhyme or reason which determines which step it will be.  Most often it is the first or the last.  Rarely it is another.  This step, whichever it may be, is always just a bit taller than all the rest.  This step inequality causes unrest among all the others.  Indeed the users of these unequal stairs cannot help but trip and stumble their way through the mire resulting from this arbitrary step warfare, and it should not, nay must not, be tolerated.

And it is not only in Astana that this terrible state is allowed to persist.  The stairs of Almaty, too, toil under this curse.  To the American stride, this is indeed a heavy load to bear.  Raised in a country that believes in dignity and equality to all its citizens, that one step out of many is allowed such great standing through no greater merit of its own does great injury to our civic spirits.  We are a tolerant people, but a civilization must have order; it must have justice; it must be able to walk up a flight of steps without falling on its face.

Take the elevator, you suggest.  Ah, yes, the elevator.  That great equalizer.  And yet, in many buildings, in order to use the elevator you must be one of the elite--possessor of that object of great worth, the elevator card.  Buy one, and you can ride 100 times.  Do not squander your rides though, for you will have to pay again when your 100 times runs out.

We are caught, as the saying goes, between a rock and a hard place.  Watch your step.  The only way out, is up.