That Time I Got Stuck in an Elevator....Twice

About 2 weeks ago I was in the process of packing up and moving. My brother had moved about a week earlier and had mass amounts of boxes so my mom got them from him and brought them down to my apartment one morning. I went out to meet her and we each grabbed a stack of boxes and headed into my apartment. Now, we weren't about to haul heavy awkward boxes up four flights of stairs so we summoned the elevator. It came from the sixth floor no problem. 

We hit the button and thought we started going. All of the sudden we feel this huge jolt and indeed the elevator had stopped. I was convinced we were still on the parking level but my mom said she guessed we were between parking and level one. We waited and pushed every single floor button... they turned red...that's gotta be a good sign. We finally hit the "call" button that connected us to what I am assuming was the elevator company. They could hear us but we couldn't hear ANYTHING they were saying and it got us no where. We called the apartment building's main office and those people are naturally helpful (extreme sarcasm) and said they'd do something. At this point all I could do was laugh. 

The only thing that I could possibly think of was... "Establish a pee corner!!!" (The Office... anybody? anybody?) 

We threw down all the cardboard boxes and took a seat on the elevator floor. Thank heavens we had something to sit on. Who knows the last time they cleaned the elevator was. 

This began our hour of waiting time. 

I had enough time to stare at my shoes and realize that they didn't match. Apparently as I was in a hurry to go meet my mom I grabbed 2 different flip flops out of my already packed shoe box. One was Old Navy's old flip flop style and one was the new one. One was also a size 8 and one a size 9. Awesome. 

An hour later we still hadn't heard anything. We called the main office again. They didn't care to do much of anything and said they'd "call us back" 

After that phone call we hit the call button again and they picked up but we still couldn't hear them. All of the sudden we hear quite a racket outside and see a small sliver of light come in under the door. I thought I might be dying. Finally we hear the maintenance man who, I'm not sure where he's from but, has the thickest accent of all time. He pries the door open and we are indeed a good 4.5 feet up from the parking level. We jumped down and were finally out. I didn't realize how hot it was in there until after the fact. 

 The elevator company was still on the speaker in the elevator and the maintenance man started yelling at them. It was pretty hilarious. I couldn't make out a word he was saying except the last sentence, "YOU GUY'S SUCK!" and with that he let the elevator doors slam shut. And with that we picked up our awkward heavy boxes and hauled them up four flights of stairs. Thank heavens there was no one else in there with us. 

This is the maintenance man and his crazy hair just makes his thick accent and personality even better. 

Fast forward about 3 days later. It was the day I was set to move out of my apartment and into my house. We decided the most effective way to move out of a huge apartment building would be to get the elevator keys so we could control it and not have to wait as it goes to all 6 floors. We got the keys and went to stop the elevator. It was really busy at the time and every time it stopped there were people in it. We finally decided we'd just jump in and wait till it emptied out to use the key to turn it to maintenance mode. We were headed up to my floor and we turned the key before the doors had opened. Bad idea. The elevator was stuck and the doors wouldn't open. We turned the key back to operate and nothing happens. At this point I am busting up with uncontrollable laughter because was this seriously happening again? All the guys were on the other side of the door and I can only imagine how much they were laughing. 

So we started pushing all the buttons. Levels 1-6, covered. Parking, covered. Door open and close, covered. They didn't turn red this time but instead turned blue like we were going to each of the floors. 

Basically it was a little like this. . . .

Finally the elevator started moving and sure enough we were headed to all the floors. We went down to the lobby first and there was a gaggle of people when the doors opened and who else would be there but the maintenance man himself. He looks and sees all the levels pushed and goes, "Oh, boy." They all just proceeded to stare at us and thankfully no one got in with us. Next we were off to the other 5 levels. We finally got to my floor, jumped out of the elevator and basically threw the keys to everyone else who was helping. 

Getting stuck in an elevator is not something I would highly recommend but lucky for you, if you do, there's this from ehow.com 

http://www.ehow.com/how_4457423_survive-trapped-elevator.html

Just remember, you can "deal with the loneliness by writing, reading, singing, playing cell phone games, and anything else you can do to keep calm until help arrives."

Thanks ehow