The only way to deal with having an elevator in your own home — even a home five stories high — is to have a sense of the ridiculous about it (“Giving themselves a lift,’’ Page A1, May 11). This is why I admire the Green family from the South End, specifically “the lazy teenager, the arthritic dog, the boozy mom,’’ and also the dad, who sends up his mother in the elevator after she’s had “a glass of wine or two,’’ and just hopes “we don’t find her there in the morning.’’

Mocking yourself, you make yourself impervious to the mockery of others, and even perhaps to their jealousy or resentment, too.

Eric Weinberger

Cambridge