| I
am quite intimate, now, with a certain elevator in Texas. It wasn't always
like this. It happened last September.
You
see, Jonathan
(my significant other) and I were in San Antonio where I would be playing
with the San Antonio Symphony, under the baton of a conductor named Michael
Krajewski. Michael's not just a wonderful musician, he's also got a wicked,
dry wit. This is a man who can not only conduct a symphony orchestra,
but who can tell the audience, with a straight face, that he's brought
a photo of his house, he'd like to pass it around and get it back at the
end of the concert -- and then he does it. And the audience actually passes
it around. And he actually gets it back at the end of the concert.
Anyway,
Maestro Krajewski is always fun to work with. And the hall in San Antonio
is spectacular. I was told it was impressive, but nothing prepared me
for the MANNER in which it's impressive: the audience part of the theater
is built much like the set to a movie, with false balconies, hanging plants,
statues and archways, all lit from behind, so that you feel like you're
in the middle of the set for a Mexican Opera. I was so taken with the
place that when the stage manager offered to give us a tour up to what
appeared to be an entire village built way above the stage, we jumped
at the chance. Actually we did way more than jump: We went through back
crawl spaces, climbed straight vertical ladders in the dark, shuffled
past lights and frame supports, got absolutely filthy and had a fabulous
time.
Our
hotel was right across from the Alamo. Legend has it that the hotel was
named for an infamous lady-of-the-night whose saloon was on that spot
and who waylaid someone-or-another and thus allowed someone-else-or-another
to win some battle or other. Eyebrows were always raised when the hotel
was mentioned and people would whisper scandalously, "You know who
that IS, don't you?" Mind you, this all happened about a hundred
and fifty years ago.
When
we weren't in rehearsals or performances, we visited the Alamo, ran along
the famous Riverwalk, went looking for TexMex food and got stuck in an
elevator. Yes, stuck in an elevator. For those of you who are phobic about
elevators (as I am) and who assiduously check the inspection date (have
you noticed they rarely have them anymore?), and who KNOW it's someday
going to happen to you (as I always have) -- when it finally happens,
it's an unreal feeling. I mean, you KNOW you've been waiting for it all
your life, but when it happens, it seems way too soon. Waaaay to soon.
But if you do have to get stuck in an elevator (something I apparently
had to do), it's good if it's a fairly large, well lit and well ventilated
elevator (as this was) and especially good if you are with someone you
trust and love (as I was). So at least I knew I wasn't going to get mugged.
(Or -- if I was going to get mugged, it would be a fun mugging -- more
like a hugging.) Still, it's not a calming experience.
This
particular brand of "stuck" was a lot like when my computer
freezes. The elevator just stopped. We pressed all the buttons, but nothing
happened. We grabbed the emergency phone -- but it was long dead. So we
started yelling. I do this with my computer as well, with similar results:
none at all.
So
we yelled again and rang the emergency bell and yelled some more and eventually
somebody came and tried to use the elevator. By this time we were sitting
on the floor, grasping onto the guard rail. We figured that if the elevator
started shooting upwards we could hold on and maybe not break our necks
and if it fell downwards, we'd provide the largest and most padded area
for impact that we could. However, the elevator was neither shooting up
or dropping down. It was doing nothing. Absolutely, completely and utterly
nothing.
So,
like I said, this guy came along (or at least his voice came along --
we never actually saw the guy himself so I can't swear he was there. But
his voice was there.) Anyway, eventually he heard us yelling, because
he yelled back in at us, asking if the elevator was out of order and we
yelled back at him saying yes it was seriously out of order and could
he please call for help. He said he would, and then the other elevator
came and I guess he got on it. In any case, his voice never came back.
So
we started investigating the elevator. Don't people crawl out the roofs
of elevators when they're stuck? Apparently not this elevator. Oh, eventually
we found a way to get part of the ceiling off, but getting up there didn't
look promising. We would have to stand on each other to get up there and
THEN what would we do?
About
that point, the voice of a man from "maintenance" arrived. This
voice told us the elevator was stuck. We said yes we had noticed this
and when could we get out because there were a thousand or so people who
had paid to see me play that afternoon and they weren't planning to come
to this particular elevator to see me do it. He said he needed to call
the Elevator Expert from the Elevator Company. And so we waited and waited
and waited.
After
awhile we stopped yelling and staring at each other in disbelief and we
started just talking. We talked about Mr. Otis, the man who invented the
safety device on elevators, we talked about basic Newtonian Physics and
eventually we stopped being scared. And the minute we stopped being scared,
we noticed we were bored. Very, very bored. Finally, we realized that
although it didn't have much of an escape hatch, the elevator had pretty
good acoustics.
So
we started singing in two part harmony, every song we both know. All the
verses. And when the Elevator Expert finally arrived, (and we were midway
through a second reprise of "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot) he pulled
open the doors and we crawled out. Intrepid travellers that we are (well,
actually we aren't remotely intrepid) but we actually took the other elevator
to get down. Fact is, it wasn't really THAT bad. When I got home, I wrote
about it to my best friend and
then made a list of tips for surviving a stuck elevator. This is what
I wrote:
TIPS FOR THRIVING IN A STUCK ELEVATOR:
1. Always visit the toilet before entering an elevator
2. Always take your cell phone when contemplating an elevator trip
3. Bring important phone numbers with you when getting on an elevator
4. If possible, always ride elevators with people you like and trust
5. Memorize the words to at least 25 popular songs, in case they are needed
during long unplanned stopover between floors
6. If someone is unexpectedly late for a meeting, meal or performance
-- check the elevator
ADDITIONAL SUGGESTIONS:
7. Always take reading matter, glasses & small flashlight when travelling
by elevator
8. Consider taking a snack whenever entering elevator, even when intending
to only ride one floor.
9. When exiting elevator BETWEEEN floors (in the event that someone actually
gets the door open), do not try to JUMP up to the floor -- have someone
put a chair inside the elevator so you can crawl up.
10. When exiting an elevator between floors, do not dally at the lip of
the floor -- GET THE HELL OUT -- because if the elevator starts moving
you'll get squashed (or possibly just part of you will get squashed).
11. If someone is stuck in an elevator, do not just leave them there alone.
Tell them you are going to get help and will be back in five minutes.
Then actually come back and stay there, talking to them. It's very lonely
in a stuck elevator, even when you're not alone.
P.S. New elevators will allegedly not free fall DOWN. According to the
Elevator Expert, they now free fall UP, getting faster and faster as you
get near the top of the building. I find this hard to believe. Or maybe
I simply don't want to believe it. This fact was meant to calm us, I think.
It didn't. I don't see how an accelerating free-fall UP is any better
than an accelerating free-fall DOWN. I think I would rather break my legs
than my head, but I can only hope that the elevator people have worked
this out and have reasons for believing they've come up with the right
solution.
P.P.S. it's not as easy as it looks to crawl out the top of an elevator
FINAL
NOTE: Consider taking the stairs.
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