A temporary ride in a small square cubicle…
Objective: Vertical Transportation.
Obstacle: Polite requiem/bad weather jokes.
My advice: Make sure you hit the powder room before climbing on board.
Around ten pm an elevator decided to stop between the 18th and 19th floor of my building, with me as its lucky passenger. Fortunately (unlike most of my jaunts in elevators) I was well equipped. Expecting company the next day and far too lazy to stop by a liquor store I had purchased a bottle of vino in Earl’s (conveniently corked) not an hour earlier. So while my friends were waiting downstairs at Earl's for me to grab a sweater… The elevator chose to take a breather.
The car sort of vibrated a bit and then a hefty CLUNK. Not shaking, not like an earthquake, but enough for a girl who is phobic of getting stuck in an elevator, crashing to my own demise (pitch black in a box – always think worst case scenario) to get scared. I begin searching the box for an alarm… a search button of sorts.
Before pulling my blackberry out to call 911… an omnipresent husky voice asked, “Are you okay?”
Bewildered....I examine myself. Search the ceiling for cameras and respond with a whimper, “Yes, but I’m a bit afraid.”
Terrified, and irritated that my friends will all be taking shots soon and I’ll just be trying to entertain myself with no book, or lap top or boyfriend, or even a freaking stranger! While my building is the safest, soundest and most bulletproof structure west of the Mississippi I felt like Karma was catching up with me. The only proof I could rummage up after being told to “press certain buttons, hold tight, be patient, all is good, we’ve called the fire department” was, “I am the least patient person in the universe (notoriously late) and so this is what God had to do to me.”
I stretched my calves and uncorked my bottle of cab, and starting fishing for sympathy texts from every poor soul in my address book. Damn, it’d be funny to pull together stories of people that got stuck in elevators, imagine the conversations?
The little bar on my blackberry was blinking with exhaustion, and soon I realized the only conversation I’d be enjoying was the one with myself (and the occasional few words with the technician trying to get me free from the locked jaws of this stupid freight elevator- padded walls included)…. Woops, did I leave that part out?
So my mind wondered past my To Do lists…. Fretted a bit about tomorrow, but when I realized I had nothing other than me to keep myself company (As a guilty extrovert - I was screwed)… I allowed my thoughts to lollygag and linger, rehashing happy memories, replaying the euphoric hours happening just days before ...... again and again.
When you're so caught up in the present, tangled in incredible conversation, the type where the words someone is saying, are so captivating you don't want to stop listening, but just thirsty for more... that's when you know you're living. Lately I'd enjoyed many an exchange so titillating... I appreciated my time locked nineteen stories above the Mile High City to step back. I carefully sorted through the layers of laughter and serious discussions, and pure curiosity to figure out what exactly about those particular conversations was so powerful.
Sometimes I get so busy loving/scheduling/analyzing life... I forget I can derive joy from a memory every time I pause long enough to relive it...
Then arrive the succulent memories, the funny ones, the comical anecdotes that rip sanity from your innards leaving your stomach aching with raw… so tender and so exhilarated…
You’re alive.
I chortled like a drunk idiot to the chilly air (I was nursing the red wine slowly… in fear of being discovered by firefighters intoxicated, but much more terrified of the possibility I’d have to tinkle and well…. Enough Said!) and when sitting up was no longer fun. I scooted my rear end up to the wall, extending my legs upward, so I appeared to be a massive L shape…getting my jacket and jeans and hair dirty, and relishing the unanticipated silence.
Until a knock on the door and five fire fighters appeared above me, ladder in tow, ready to save me from my adventure in solitary confinement. I was a bit sad to wave goodbye to my little box, the same box I’d venture into the next morning or evening.. the same box that carries me from my home and back. But now the box had more of me in it… memories, ideas, internal dialogue, the personal thoughts that make you smile…
Had I not pushed that button on that Saturday night, never would have come to fruition.
Sometimes when you’re all alone and you don’t have a choice, but to sit there and let your brain go where it may… are the moments worth holding onto.
Conclusion: Never enter an elevator without an extra cellphone battery and a bottle of booze.
