The Twilight Zone Elevator

Oh, you. You Universe, you. How you like to play tricks on your SJG. How you like to test me at the beginning of the year. Silly Universe. Forgive me, but I must Universe-shame you now for the little stunt you pulled yesterday in the elevator. What were you thinking, Universe? After a month-long break, it was my first day back teaching folks how to find the funny, and in a new location yet. I was so organized, with my pretty blue folder of handouts and my smart green folder of discussion topics. I was excited to see my wonderful returnees and a few newbies, too. To make sure everything went smoothly, I got there early to get acclimated. We, the amalgamated members of Anxiety Nation, like to see what's what and settle in before the others arrive. In this way, we keep anxiety at bay, or in the basic bay vicinity. The elevator was meant to be a brief pit stop, Universe, not purgatory. But ha ha and lol on the SJG. No, I didn't get stuck, tanks God, as Grandma Shorty would say. But I couldn't get to the floor I needed, and that was bad enough. I pushed six, the elevator stopped at four. The doors opened. I didn't get out. I didn't want the fourth floor, I wanted the sixth.

The doors closed. I pushed six again. The button didn't light up. The elevator stayed put. I did a nice cleansing breath. The elevator went nowhere. I did another cleansing breath. "What's going on?" I asked myself. Naturally, I was alone on this journey. I pushed the "open up or else" button, just to see if I could get out of jail free. The doors opened. I stepped out. Hurray! The doors closed. I pushed the up button. The same elevator returned. Again and again and again, this scenario played out. The elevator from the Twilight Zone kept returning, beckoning me to step right in and take my chances. But Risk Averse is my middle name. Have I mentioned the last time I jumped out of a plane? No, I haven't. Because I never will, unless I'm in action movie and I piss off Tom Cruise and he pushes me out into the wild blue yonder after I give him sh*t over some of his questionable life choices.

At last, a human appeared in the hallway. "How do I get to the sixth floor?" "Practice!" No, he didn't say that, but wouldn't that have been great? "The sixth floor is locked," he said. "Locked?!!!!" "You need an access card." "Do you have one?" "No." "What should I do?" "Go to the lobby. Talk to the guard." Back into the scary elevator I went, to talk to the nonexistent guard. Several commercial breaks later, he showed up and got me to the sixth floor. Hurray! Then all I had to do was worry about the other eight people facing the same elevator dilemma. Just between us, I'm looking for a new location, preferably on the ground floor.