This past weekend my life flashed before my eyes.
Well, not really. I just found myself in an extremely uncomfortable, frightening situation. It was one of those things that everybody fears, whether they’ll admit to it or not.
I was trapped between floors in a multi-story building.
See, we went to the mall this past weekend. It’s the big one in town, with five floors and maybe a hundred or so stores. They have a decent Radio Shack there that I wanted to browse, and J.C. Penney was having a sale.
We started our shopping adventure at Radio Shack. Understandably, my wife has little patience for my gadget fetish, and after a few minutes of watching me drool, she announced that she would take the Offspring to Penney’s while I finished coveting radio-controlled Hummers and surgically-implantable cell phones.
The two of them headed upstairs to Penney’s while I finished up at Radio Shack. I ended up purchasing a pack of LEDs and some batteries and marched off to meet them on the third floor.
Not five minutes later, there I was, in between the second and third floors, when the machinery ground to a halt.
I wasn’t sure what to do at first. I looked around, hoping things would start moving again. I think I even jumped up and down a few times. Nothing. Panic and bile rising in my throat, I tried to avoid hyperventilating while I frantically searched for a way to call for help. Once again, I was out of luck. There was no bright red phone, nor was there an “emergency” button.
It’s all right, I thought to myself. Somebody is bound to notice that I’m missing, and that things aren’t working the way they should be. All I have to do is be patient and remain calm, and I’ll be rescued. I had a bottle of water, and I knew that my wife could give my cell number to the paramedics if they had to talk me through any desperate escapes.
And sure enough, I wasn’t trapped for more than ten minutes before I heard the repairman’s voice, calling out to me as if from the Great Beyond: “Hey! Buddy! Get off the escalator!”
That was when I realized that when an escalator breaks down, it simply becomes stairs, and you can walk to the next floor. I breathed a sigh of relief, and made it to the third floor without further incident. When I emerged, victorious, onto the landing, I expected a round of applause and maybe a blanket and a cup of hot coffee. I was sorely disappointed.
I did, however, receive several eye-rolls, which aren’t nearly as heart- or soul-warming. I guess I should take what I can get.
This post is stuck on the thirteenth floor over at humor-blogs.com.
February 13th, 2008 at 6:44 pm
Wow! Lucky you weren’t between the 4th and 5th floor!
February 13th, 2008 at 7:15 pm
That would have been truly frightening. As it is, I had nightmares last night about endless escalators.
February 14th, 2008 at 5:35 am
I was once trapped in my car for three hours.
Then I realized that I could unlock my door from the inside.
THANK GOD I kept the owner’s manual in the glove box.
February 14th, 2008 at 7:41 am
Wow! Sounds like a horrible ordeal! I need to go check to see if my car doors unlock from the inside. Thanks for sharing.
February 14th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
That had to be a most frightening experience! LOL You may want to seek a therapist.
February 14th, 2008 at 7:06 pm
I have my therapist on speed-dial. He agrees that I deserved more than a few eye rolls, and was very understanding when I told him about my horrible ordeal.
February 14th, 2008 at 7:41 pm
they made you walk up by yourself? no stretchers to carry you?? if you’d have wanted to walk, I am guessing you would have opted for the stairs in the first place…
February 15th, 2008 at 8:16 am
Exactly! What sort of rescue team makes the victim walk to safety?
Maybe I’ll start taking the elevator. The threat of falling many tens of feet to a crushing death would be more than made up for by the promise of hot coffee, should I need to be rescued.
February 17th, 2008 at 2:28 am
I once saw this couple who had somehow missed the huge ass maintenance sign and stepped on an escalator that was obviously not moving. They stood there like dumbasses for a while before they even realised it wasn’t moving. Then the guy opened his mouth and said “why isn’t the escalator moving”. The girl said “I don’t know”.
And they just looked around and continued standing there until the maintenance guy shooed them off…
Gawd, you’re one of them.
February 17th, 2008 at 12:29 pm
See, now that’s different. There was a sign that those idiots missed. I, on the other hand, was trapped in an ordeal that scarred me emotionally.
No, I’m not one of them, I swear.
February 18th, 2008 at 9:57 am
I’m not sure how often this kind of thing happens but there’s bound to be a tedious investigation at great taxpayer expense that ends up confirming that “the universe is just flat weird sometimes.”
Malcolm
February 20th, 2008 at 7:16 am
Didn’t that investigation already happen? And that’s how we got quantum physics?