An Elevator Speech

An Elevator Speech

By Heather Ann Martinez

Minneapolis...nearing midnight. There was a slight chill in the summer air as I ran to the elevator of the massive hotel I was staying on for the weekend conference. I had been told that the hotel was under renovation when I made my reservation. The agent that checked me in the day before was so busy checking others in that she did not give me all the information I needed to get to my room on the 12^th floor. I think I also failed to mention that I wasn’t all that great with direction either! The hotel had more than fifteen floors and shared a lobby with a business that had offices on the opposite side of the hotel rooms. Due to the renovation, one could open their hotel room door and look directly across into someone’s office or conference room. There were long plastic pieces hanging from the ceiling. I never thought those long plastic pieces would ever be so important to me as they were that night. I will come back to those in a bit. You may be wondering how I was locked in an elevator going up to the 12^th floor from the lobby during a power outage a few minutes before midnight.

As I was walking quickly to the elevator, I missed the sign to use one of the other elevators. There wasn’t a soul anywhere in the lobby. The only noise that could be heard were the sound of my clogs hitting the tile floors and echoing into the distance. Of course, I hadn’t noticed that there were power outages happening in the city. I was at the conference across the street from the hotel all day well into the evening. I rarely looked outside the window let alone listened to a news report. Some of the others attending the conference may have mentioned there were storms in the area but I was focused on the keynote speaker. I was furiously taking notes and savoring the moment. I kept thinking the storms in Minneapolis couldn’t be any worse than they were in Chicago. It wouldn’t take very long for me to never think that about another city again.

So, I entered the elevator. There was a bright overhead light on and I pressed the button for the 12^th floor. The doors closed. I heard my cell phone ding. No signal. I shrugged and thought this elevator ride would only be a few minutes and then I’d get reception back at my destination. At first, I noticed that the elevator seemed to be moving slowly, almost creeping. I thought I should just be patient. I remembered there was a renovation going on and there didn’t seem to be any activity in the hotel lobby. I decided to count floors. The second floor was next. Then the third and fourth. There was a creaking sound just above the fifth floor and then the overhead light went out and I felt a huge thud. My heart sank. The elevator stopped between the sixth and seventh floor. Even if I could open the door, all that I would see was a concrete wall. A tiny light lit up just over the emergency phone box. I opened the door and picked up the receiver. The woman’s voice on the other line was both comforting and scolding. She assured me I missed a sign to use the elevators on the opposite side of the lobby after ten in the evening. I apologized profusely. I feared that she might not find someone to help me because I missed the sign. She made me promise to read all of the signs and follow all of the renovation directions for the rest of my stay. I promised I would. She told me she would call the fire department and said that it would take a while to get me out. There were many power outages in the area and there weren’t enough rescue workers available to meet all of the needs. I would have to wait my turn. She asked me if I was injured. I said I wasn’t injured but I was concerned that I might run out of air. I was in a box without any lights or running fans. I asked her to stay on the line with me. She refused. She said the phone was connected to an emergency generator and wanted to make sure I could talk to the firefighters through the phone when they came to rescue me. I asked her if she had any idea how long that would be. She said she had no idea and to sit tight.

I sat on the floor. I tapped my phone periodically to check the time. Even though I could not call out on it, the light and clock still seemed to work. I tried to control my breathing and stop myself from screaming out. The woman could not give me much hope on when a rescue would happen but only said that I would not be forgotten. I was also thinking about the other people that needed rescuing. I wanted anyone who was injured to be rescued before me. I tried to sing to myself. I thought about my friends who would be looking for me the following morning and my family back home. I don’t think I ever wanted to be out of a situation more since I was in that elevator. The next two hours felt like years. I made a bucket list while in that elevator. I kept thinking that if I got out of the box, I would go back to school. I would travel. I would buy a new car. I would stop telling myself I couldn’t go to the moon if the opportunity ever became available. Halfway through the third hour, the phone rang. It was the fire chief. He asked me if I remembered what floor I last saw as I was going up. He said there was still not enough power to move the elevator up to the 12^th floor. He said the firefighters couldn’t see exactly which floors I was between without going into the shaft. I found out later they were looking down from the 10^th floor entrance.

After pulling my hair away from my face, I told him I had not made it to the 7^th floor. That was when I heard the firefighters shout and they started pulling the cables with a mechanized crane. One of them opened the door to the 7^th floor. He asked me if I knew how to get to the 12^th floor from there. I said I did. I looked out at the long hanging plastic pieces. The moonlight shined through them which guided me to the staircases. I knew I was in need of the bathroom. I felt badly that I only said a brief thank you to the fire chief and to the firefighter who opened the door, who got me out of the box. I asked the front desk agent to express my appreciation the next morning. She said she would and also said I gave the night clerk a scare. No one had gotten stuck in the elevator in the middle of a power outage before on the night clerk’s shift. I told her that didn’t surprise me. It was just my luck! In the early morning hours after my rescue, I wrote out all of my bucket list items in my elevator speech and have been checking off each one ever since.