Going up? Scary times on elevators
Is there anything more scary in the mundane day-to-day of life than those few seconds spent waiting for the elevator doors to open? OK, a few other scares come to mind, but the elevator event is way up there on my anxiety scale.
It seems if an elevator is going to trap people, it will do so during those two or three seconds of waiting. You get on, you face forward with others, you stare up at the lights as they pass from floor to floor, and you feel the slight bump as the elevator lands on a floor.
And then you wait. It feels like 20 minutes to me.
Will the doors open? Or will this ride turn into an unfunny scene from a sitcom?
If those doors don’t open, I’m about to learn the names, the jobs, the anxiety triggers and some of the personal hygiene habits of the people riding with me.
I’ve never been trapped on an elevator, but I’ve sweated out more than a few five-second lags, and that’s plenty enough drama for me.
Most people except astronauts and scuba divers have at least a bit of claustrophobia. My own fear of closed spaces is significant enough that I avoid elevators except in extreme cases of climbing stairs.
When I was a TV reporter, I was in and out of tall buildings all the time. My rule: anything less than five flights of stairs, I walk. Over five floors, I would take a risk on the elevator, but only going up.
Often I was lugging the cameraman’s tripod. I still have some of those muscles.
That was before cellphones.
If stranded on an elevator, your only contact with the outside world was that button panel – the red stop button and sometimes a tired old phone in a glass case. As I rode up, I would tap my foot and stare at the phone. And what about the call button; is there someone at the other end?
When I was a kid, our dentist was on a very high floor in the Gulf Building in downtown Pittsburgh.
Twice a year, we’d walk through the shiny marble lobby to the bank of elevators, where we’d be greeted by an elderly man who had been driving the elevator all his life.
From his little stool in the corner, he would welcome us aboard, close the crisscrossed gate, push a lever and up we’d go, sailing higher as the lights lit up the panel of buttons. He was like a vertical streetcar driver. Wherever my fear of elevators started, it wasn’t at the Gulf Building.
There are only a few elevators operators left, including at the U.S. Capitol, pushing floor buttons for senators.
The rest of us ride elevators without the reassuring presence of an operator. Every time I walk onto one, I check out the panel. In most modern buildings, the phone has been replaced by a more reliable-looking series of panic buttons.
Before pushing the floor button to close the doors, I tap my handbag to make sure I have my cellphone. Worst case scenario, I could call 911.
That is what cellphones are for.