My elevator got stuck this morning, on the 17th floor. The doors were open about two inches, and fortunately, we were able to force them to open all the way, get out and wait for another, but for a minute there, I was really pissed off and concerned, which, of course, manifested itself in the form of giggles.

(I am such a girl.)

Yesterday, coming back from the grocery store — more specifically, coming back from a big shopping spree at the grocery store which had culminated in the purchase of a five-pound bag of potatoes, a large jar of applesauce and a lot of frozen entrees — the elevator stopped on the 14th floor. The doors opened and we could see in the elevator across the hall, someone was stuck. Actually stuck. Like the doors were four inches open and he was just looking out, trying to pry them open, but looking really bothered and repeatedly hitting the alarm button.

The elevators in my building do not have phones in them, which I thought violated some fire code, but maybe not. I don't know. (I've rarely seen an elevator with a phone in actual working condition, anyway. Usually, they've been torn out and molested in some bored riders attempt at vandalism, or perhaps frustration.) Anyway, all you can do is hit the damn alarm button over and over, and hope you'll really piss of someone enough to come rescue you. Or something. I'm sure that's not the actual wording on the little "In case of emergency" signs in the elevator, but any logical person would realize that's just about your only option.

As I was saying — our doors slide open on the 14th floor. We see the kid, stuck in the elevator. I think he's actually calling out 'Help, help!', but I can't be sure because just then, our doors close. And we head back downstairs. Down, down, down, from the 14th floor, which isn't quite my final destination (18th floor), but was fairly close.

So the elevator takes us all down to the lobby, which must be some sort of programmed response when they momentarily turn off the elevators, which apparently, they were doing, because apparently said kid had been pressing the button long enough to annoy someone. But now, the lobby (as lobbies generally are) is on the ground floor. Eighteen floors below where me and my five-pound bag of potatoes want to be.

There was some frenzied pushing of buttons that just refused to light up for a minute or two before reality hit: I have to be somewhere in half an hour. I really do not want to go there with my five-pound bag of potatoes and other groceries. Like, I really don't. I don't even want to be late, that would just be bad. This doesn't really give me a lot of alternatives. I consider putting my groceries somewhere downstairs, in the lobby for the time being, but the only secure location I have access to is a mailbox that's has a four-inch square opening, and I really don't think my potatoes will fit in there.

And so I — your intrepid and out-of-shape narrator — braved 18 flights of stairs in a poorly-ventilated, often smoked-in back staircase, to put my damn potatoes away.

But there is a happy ending to this all, which is that, just after I got to my door, my neighbor across the hall walked by, looked at me all out of breath and bedraggled looking and probably thought I was crazy, but let me know that she'd just gotten off an elevator and wasn't aware of any problems with them. So anyway. I got to take them back down, at least. That time, anyway. I am still very suspicious of this whole system, and though I like the view from this far up, I really, really, really don't want to do that again, like, ever.