Many moons ago, during that four year blur known as high school, I participated in Odyssey of the Mind, a competition in creativity. Two of those years our team made it to World Finals, once in Ames, IA, and the next year in College Park, MD. Both years we stayed in the dorms on campus.
The morning we were to compete in Spontaneous, an impromptu portion of the competition, I decided to go downstairs and trade pins with other people in the lobby. Trading pins is a major thing to do there, as you get some pretty cool looking pins, meet people, and what have you. One guy from Texas put it a bit more bluntly saying, “There’s two reasons to trade pins. To screw little kids from their cool pins, and gettin’ pussy.” He described some pins as “pussy-getters.” Things aren’t normal in Texas.
So, I get in the elevator to head down from the 7th floor. I’m in the elevator by myself, which doesn’t usually bother me. With me I have my binder of pins, and a collapsable umbrella. The light shows that we have passed the 6th floor. Then the 5th. Then the elvator stops. Not at the 6th floor. Not at the 5th. I’m stuck. Instantly Speed and every other movie that involves plummeting to ones doom in an elevator surfaced in my mind’s eye.
No plummeting.
No sounds.
Nothing.
So, I pulled the alarm thingy. There was a loud noise, but nothing else. I pushed it back in.
Aha!! The phone!! I finally have areason to use the phone in an elevator!! I’d always wondered who was at the other end of those things. The lobby? The administration building? Tech support in India?
“Hello?”
“Hello, I’m stuck in the elevator.”
“What building are you in?”
Of all the places one would think to have caller ID, I’d imagine you’d have it on a help hotline so the panicky person on the other end that can barely remember their own names can get the help they need. Luckily I remembered the name of the building, and told them.
“Alrighty. We’ll send someone out.”
I hung up. Nothing. There are 4 elevators, 2 side by side acrodss from two more. I could hear the people in the elevator next to me getting on and off.
A buzzer went off in my elevator, followed by some sort of grinding.
Nothing.
Having seen enough TV to know how to escape, I pried the doors open to reveal the second doors. The elevator was 2 feet below the level of the current floor. The second doors wouldn’t open. That’s when I started going nuts. I started yelling out to the people that were in operable elevators. I started singing, chanting, hooting, hollering, etc. There was a sizable crowd outside the elevator asking if I was okay.
Then it hit me. There’s probably a release for the doors so that morons can’t pry open the doors and plummet to their doom. I looked at the inner workings and figured out which lever was the release. Thank god for my umbrella. I used the umbrella to release the doors, which easily slid open to reveal the crowd of people that helped me out of the elevator.
Spontaneous. Fuck.
How long was I in the elevator? It felt like ages.
I ran down the stairs to the lobby. I told the person at the front desk that I was the guy in the elevator, but I’m out now, so I’m okay.
“The elevator is stuck?”
That’s reassuring.
I ran out the doors, and straight to spontaneous, thinking that my team had already gone, as I was likely late.
I got there, but they weren’t there yet. They showed up, pissed that I had left without them. I told them the story, which lightened the mood a bit.
When we got back the elevator was still stuck.
The night of the closing ceremonies and party it was still stuck.
As far as I know, it’s still stuck.