It was a crazy weekend of packing up and moving and trying out the new bed (oh, don't get all hot and bothered. After a day's worth of heavy lifting, the first few minutes on the new bed went something like "Oh YEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAH!! Boom chicka zzzzzzzzzzzzz . . .")
Sunday afternoon we were headed back to the old place, as Katr had some work to do and the information superhighway wasn't hooked up at our new place. Katr had gone to collect the vehicle and I was headed to the "garbage room" on the main floor.
And so it was that I found myself alone on the elevator. And in that moment of quiet solitude, I let one rip.
It was fabric-rendingly loud and impossibly lengthy and I quietly said "HA ha!" to myself. "I christen thee, elevator!"
Nanoseconds later, it occurred to me that I hadn't really thought this through. I was alone in a slow-moving box with a limited air supply and I'd eaten vegan just a few nights before.
As the fumes threatened to overwhelm me, I considered getting off the elevator but realized that I couldn't. Our new building has a crazy fob system which allows you to get to your own floor, the lobby and your parking level but not any other. I pushed buttons in vain for a few seconds before I was faced with a new horror.
Sunday was the day of the condo Holiday Party, which, as the elevator newsletter informed me, Dave, Nick, Diane, Linda and Peggy all helped organize. The newsletter promised the most spectacular tree the lobby had ever seen! The party was BYOB, but not BYO Stench That Might End Lives. The party was meant to start in just a few minutes. Sweet Fancy Fruitcake - was this how I was going to meet my neighbours?
The floors ticked by so slowly that I seriously wondered my olfactory crime had caused the elevator to slip into a rift in the space/time continuum. Each time I perceived a slight pause in the elevator's movement, I imagined the doors opening and the building's residents piling in, laden down with macaroons and fruitcake. I imagined they would smile at me welcomingly until they realized what I had BYOF'd. Then the smiles would fade. Perhaps the elderly might black out entirely. And then, once the elevator doors opened on the main floor and we could all breathe free once more, the strong would help the weak to a lobby couch and the po po would be called. And no one would offer me fruitcake. NO FRUITCAKE FOR CREAMPUFF!!
I was startled out of my flight of nightmarish fancy by the elevator stopping. "Don't get on!" I cried out as the doors opened, "SAVE YOURSELVES!!" No one was there. I had made it to the lobby. As the air wooshed in and my head cleared, I exited the scene of the crime as fast as as my trembling legs would carry me and made my way down to the garbage room. Which was empty.
HA ha! I christen thee, Garbage Room!
