1 post tagged “elevator mate”

You're trapped in a (temporarily) out of order elevator - who would you like to be trapped with? 
Submitted by tbtissimus.

Right, first of all you should know I can get very claustrophobic.  I didn't use to be, but after one too many nights of sleeping in a bunk bed in Argentina and dreaming that I was freaking out having been pushed into the luggage section of a horribly crowded bus left very uncomfortable in enclosed spaces.  If I can't get a seat on the tube I'll wait for the next one, or travel back down the line until it's empty.  I've been known to take highly convoluted routes home, to avoid the crush, actually, I'm not known for it at all - this is the first time I've spoken about out.

But anyway, I'm claustrophic and getting stuck in a lift is the stuff nightmares are made of.

However, I did get stuck in a lift last year.  On the day of my mother's funeral.

It was one of those days where you really think life cannot get any worse, but wait - the lift has broken down between floors, it's 11 o'clock at night and Israelis are not really reknowned for their customer service.  Fortunately, I was with my dad and one of my brothers - the fearsome brother, the one who makes people sit and think about what they've done, whilst feeling bad about themselves.

When the reticent receptionist told us to chill out (this was after an hour) my brother gently pushed my dad aside and got onto the intercom system.

"Get the manager of this hotel here now"
"I'm not doing that, he'll be in bed"
"Get him here, now"
"Sorry, no can do"
to my dad "what's the name of the local paper?"
"Ok, you have a choice now.  Either the manager comes down here and sorts this out now, or he sits down to breakfast in the morning and reads in the Jerusalem Post that three of his guests were trapped in the lift for an hour and a half, on the day of their mother's funeral.  And that you could have stopped it.  Up to you"
"I'll call him right away"

When we were eventually hoiked out, staff members were gathered round bearing glasses of wine.  My brother declined, saying wine made him angry.

They put my dad into a suite, with complementary fruit baskets (and extra wine) but they never cleaned our footprints off the lift door from where we'd tried to kick our way out.