Date: Fri, 29 Oct 1993 22:06:37 GMT
From: renee@netcom.com (Renee)
Subject: When Nature Calls, She Calls Collect
Newsgroups: talk.bizarre

     When they built the building I'm in some 20-odd years ago,
they saved money on the elevators.  Instead of going one-vendor,
top-of-the-line 100% Otis, they jury-rigged 'em together
piecemeal with odds and ends, scraps of metal, leftover bits of
vacuum cleaner hovercraft experiments gone awry, what have you. 
Well, push has finally come to shove and they are trying to fix
them.  
     What this means is they take one out while trying to fix the
other, then vice-versa.  What it really means is interminable
delays and a half-hour skippity-bounce ride to get to the 19th
floor, where I'm at.  
     Well, last week, with a good fifteen to twenty of us in
there, the elevator stopped between floors fifteen and sixteen. 
No sweat, this happens all the time.  So we waited.  And waited. 
Called on the emergency phone, pressed the alarm.  They know,
they know.  After an hour or so I noticed one man seemed a little
more uncomfortable with the situation the rest of us, fidgeting
with his collar, shifting his weight around from foot to foot,
making the whole car even more edgy.
     An older woman next to him held his hand.  "It's okay.  My
daughter's afraid to fly..."
     "No," he said, sotto voice, "I have to pee."
     Everyone heard it.  All our own worst fears realized.
     "Just go," someone said.  "We'll live."
     "I can't.  I have an interview."
     He *was* looking good.  
     "Push the door open a little.  It'll be okay."
     A burly guy in the front of the car opened the door about
half a foot.  The poor guy in the suit moved to the front of the
car and we all heard him unzip.  And we waited.  
     And waited.
     Nothing.
     A whisper made its way through the car.  We all turned 
around.
     It began.  A few seconds later, the unthinkable.  
     "Hey, what the fook!?" echoed up through the shaft.  Now you
*don't* want to pee on the heads of grouchy elevator repairmen
who've been working round-the-clock, apologizing for what wasn't
their fault anyhow.  
     "Quick.  Stop."
     He couldn't.
     The car lurched and dropped about half a floor.  He stopped.
     "Don't do that, Tony!  That car's near capacity, you
stupid fuck."  We could hear it all, clear as if we were on the
ground.
     "I'm sorry," the guy yelled down.  "Sorry."

     But the rest of us had only just begun.