Okay, go upstairs, call Moonshadow, come outside and talk to That Girl From New Hampshire Who Got Bit By a Squirrel and Gave Kevin Estrogen Pills, Though Not Necessarily in That Order, maybe catch Letterman, and see if anything interesting is happening in Daphne G's room. It's a full night, really. Plus, it's a night where we're free from responsibility because we have nothing to do tomorrow but fly back home. Can you say Floor Party?
There are more than a few advantages to coming back early from the awards dinner. For example, I'll have the jump on everyone else when it comes to packing my suitcase. I'll have the room all to myself in case I want to make any private phone calls. I'll be able to keep track of who's around and who isn't, because I'm just that good. And there are no lines at the elevator, which is a big deal because this hotel is currently hosting about eleven million high school students and none of the floors have non-emergency stair access.
These people aren't playing, because once you're inside the elevator, you still have to prove you're a guest at the hotel by running your key card through the thingy before it'll let you select a floor. I punch six and smile as the doors close on no one. There's something so serene about being all alone in a huge hotel. I watch as the numbers go up...well, there were a few letters. 'L' was for lobby, 'MZ' was for mezzanine, then it hit '2,' and I knew that '3' was next. At least, '3' was supposed to be next, but the elevator never makes it to three. Instead, it stops in between '2' and '3,' in that scary elevator limbo place.
Well, this is certainly hilarious. I'm stuck in the elevator. Not for real. There's no way I can possibly be stuck in an elevator, because no one, anywhere, ever, has actually gotten stuck in an elevator. Except for that guy in Europe who was in one for, like, three days before anyone noticed, but that's precisely why I live in America, where people only get stuck in elevators on television, and I can't help but notice that this isn't fucking Doogie Howser, M.D. I suppose I should be glad, though, that there's no pregnant woman a la Full House and that I haven't yet tumbled down the elevator shaft L.A. Law-style, because that would totally suck, if not because I was dead then because my death was methodically contrived by David E. Kelley, a man for whom my hatred knows no bounds. He couldn't write himself out of a paper bag without fouling it up in a twist ending of some sort. Okay, I've written myself out of the paper bag, he says, but now the paper bag is a teenage prostitute with a crack baby that may or may not have been born in a bathroom stall at a public high school.
ANYWAY, we were talking about me and how I'm currently stuck in an elevator. Perhaps I should have found some fake wood on which to knock when I pointed out to Amanda the other day that there was no emergency call phone in the elevator, just a two-way speaker sort of walkie-talkie button system, because that's a step up from a real, live phone. Every time I press the button, I hear a series of odd beeps, then touch-tones, then the hotel's hold message ("please refrain from stabbing yourself in the eyeball as you hold, because your call is important to us. obviously it's not so important that we'd answer it promptly, but we still care a little bit, so put down the scissors already.") before I finally get to talk to a real, live person.
The catch? This real, live person, not unlike much of this and every hotel's staff that I've ever been subjected to, does not speak English very well. So you can see that getting un-stuck from the elevator is going to be a real treat. Consuela informs me in Spanglish (so glad I took two years of that, because you never know when you'll be trapped in a small space and at the mercy of illegal immigrants) that she's on top of the situation. For some reason, I find this comforting.
Until half an hour later, that is. Odd beeps, touch-tones, hold, illegal alien. "I'm still stuck in the elevator, dammit, and where the hell is that fucking maid with my rum and Coke?" A different hotel employee assures me in broken English that the situation is being taken care of.
Whatever. I'm just glad I have my watch to pass the time. It's fun and exciting, don't you know. At least, I have to pretend that it's fun and exciting because I have managed to get stuck in the elevator at the one time I left my bag upstairs in the room. What's in the bag? people always ask as if it's any of their damn business. It is essential that the bag contain something to read with, something to write with, something to write on, and any number of other quasi-essentials, including a CD player and its accompanying CDs, tissues, half packs of gum, loose change, paperclips in case I ever need to pull a MacGyver, condoms and lube because a boi always needs to be prepared, and junk foods in various stages of decay. You laugh, but I'd kill right now for that three-day-old Subway sandwich or the room service apple I got from Shane.
Okay, I have for real been stuck in this elevator for an hour, and I'm starting to get pissed off. I can only alternate between pressing the 'alarm' button and changing the time zones on my watch so many times before I go complete insane, fashion a bizarre crowbar out of my pants, and Incredible Hulk my way out of this thing. Beeps, tones, guy who speaks...English!?! Praise Jebus. "Hey, what's up? I'm kinda stuck in your elevator and I was wondering when you were planning to, um, let me out." The nice man explains that the elevator guy, who lives several states away, is driving in from the mountains and should be here at some unspecified point in the evening. I have the nice man patch me through to the sixth floor, where the rest of my group has returned, so that I can assure someone, anyone that I am, in fact, not dead. No one upstairs really seems to care. Apparently, I'm missing the floor party. Damn.
My name is Pat and it's starting to look like I'm going to be in this elevator for awhile. Fuck this, I'm going to sleep.
