62. November 8th, 2010 Picture.

Ratty and I made the mistake of watching an episode of Nova entitled ‘Trapped in an Elevator’ and it completely freaked me out, shocker.  It was pretty cool to start, talking about how elevators are made, how it’s next to impossible for it to free fall (thank God) and finally ending with how a man was trapped in an elevator at his work for an entire weekend.  A WEEKEND!  Apparently he was working late on Friday, and attempted to take the elevator downstairs to smoke a cigarette.  The elevator got stuck on the non existent 13th floor, SUCH a bad omen, and all his calls to the security desk went unanswered.  He sat in the elevator for 40 something hours with no food, no water, no watch, nothing.  He had no idea how long he’d been in there or when he’d possibly get out.  How terrifying is that?!  Someone finally saw him on the surveillance video on Sunday afternoon, and got him out.  He ended up suing the building management company, because there should have been a security guard on duty 24 hours a day, but no one noticed his calls or him on the video for over 2 days.  No one could ever answer his questions about what exactly happened and why it took them so long to do something about it.  I think he got something around $250,000, to which I promptly looked at Ratty and was like, ‘that is SO not enough, I would have gone for millions.’

So the next day, at work, I had to take the elevator to the 8th floor.  I had a new found appreciation for how they worked, but was now ever more scared of the fact that I could get trapped.  Granted, I’d never be at work at 11pm on a Friday night, and I am usually only on the elevator at peak times, so I’d definitely be found quickly, but that doesn’t stop my mind from racing though worse case scenarios!

Here is a quick shot of the elevator bank at my work, just to drive the point home.