Elevator life lessons

We’re all going to die!!!” she yelled.

“We are NOT all going to die…”  I answered, dismissively.

“Yes we are!”

“Jesus Christ” I thought to myself.

Of all the people with which one CAN be stuck in a malfunctioning elevator, 3-4 stories off the ground, I had to get her.

And half a dozen others, but they were not sounding the alarm for our impending death, at least not yet.

It was the “half a dozen others” that were the root of the problem to begin with.  And the fact that the elevator was hit and miss, as far as being operational, to begin with.

It was an elevator by an elevated train station.  Glass walled so you could see the interstate, and how high off the ground you were...   And it had weight restrictions, which were regularly ignored. 

Shockingly, it broke down frequently.  

I never used it, unless it happened to be right there the moment I was walking by it, and empty.

It was both of those things that morning, so I hopped on, and as it was shutting, someone called out to have it held, and I did so.   

And the panicky woman got on. 

And the door started to shut again, and someone else hollered, and the panicky woman held the door, and someone else got on.

And that person stood in the doorway for what seemed like a very long time, to make sure that all of her friends from the train could hop on the elevator too, as opposed to having to wait the 2 minutes for it to go down and come back up, or opposed to having to… use the damn stairs.

So, there we were, jammed in like sardines, when the door finally shut, and we began to… bounce.

Up and down, herky jerky.
We were still at the elevator doorway, stuck there while the elevator protested the size of load it was being asked to carry.
Up and down, herky jerky....

And my fellow elevator rider began to lose her cool, and predict our deaths.

“No, we’re not.”  I said again, with an inflection that hinted at a roll of the eyes.

And there we all stood, as the elevator continued to bounce.  And she continued to predict that we would plummet to our deaths, and I continued to, with increasing impatience, tell her we would not…

“We’ve just got to open the door.”  I  finally said to the people in front of me, who were all too busy fretting to one another to have heard me.

I spoke louder, asking if any of the people in front of me could try to manually open the door, and they looked at me as if I was insane.   

Open the door?!?!?!?!? 

“How else to you expect to get off the goddam thing?”

 I nudged my way through to the front, put one hand on each half of the door, and strained to pry them apart.

And… it worked.  The bouncing stopped, one of the other people decided I wasn’t going to kill everyone after all and came forward to help out, we got the door all the way open, and everyone stepped out.   

“Oh my god, thank you so much, thank you!”  Said the predictor of our doom.

“No problem” I said, over my shoulder, as I headed down the stairs in a hurry, trying to not be late for work. 

And I mentally dismissed both her, and the intellectually-challenged bunch that were getting BACK on to try it again. 

In the re-telling of the story to my wife and friends later that evening, I spoke of the woman who freaked out with a combination of amusement and disdain.  Then, like now, she was the linch pin to my whole story.
I'm a pretty entertaining guy when it comes to story time, and everyone got their chucks.

The life-lesson, BIG POINT part of the story came weeks after the laughter whilst re-telling over beers.

A couple of weeks later, I’m walking down the hallway from the train to the stairs, high above the highway and the bus depot, and I hear someone holler.

“Excuse me!”

I assumed that someone was hollering out to someone else, not me, and kept walking.
I always assume they're hollering out to someone else.  I'm usually right....

“Sir, excuse me!  You in the brown coat!”    Hmmm…. I have a brown coat…  I stopped and turned around.    Oh god, it was the panicky lady from the elevator.  Great….

“I just wanted to thank you again for what you did.”

“No big deal.” I said, again dismissively.

For me, it was just one El-train commute-related incident in a long line of them.  Crazies on the train; getting caught in a closed door, on the OUTSIDE as the train started to pull out; 911 calls due to very suspicious behaviors; getting hit on by middle aged teachers visiting town for a conference; young guys whipping each other with their belts in crowded car; baby geese on the interstate on my walk to the station...  The broken elevator was barely a blip on the "big deal" radar.  

Turns out, it was a big deal, to her.

She explained that she was severely claustrophobic, and that my saying "we're not going to die!" or whatever, over and over, and calmly trying to get others to help me open the door, were the only things that kept her from completely losing it - screaming, crying, trying to push her way out, possibly hurting herself and others.    I was the linchpin to HER story.

You don't ever REALLY know how any of your actions, pronounced or seemingly insignificant, will effect others.     I got lucky that day, with my barely-on-the-polite-side-of-surly responses to what I thought was simply another's propensity for drama.  

You, at least most of you, can't count on being lucky, most times.  I sure as hell can't.  

So perhaps, as they say, you should try to be good.   It's hard for me, but... I'm always trying.