4' x 6' LOCKDOWN

Now that I have a job which requires I rise at 7 AM, I'm up and at 'em bright and early nowadays whether it's a work day or not. So this morning, I decided it would be laundry day. I don't even want to tell you how long it's been. Notwithstanding my owning tons of underwear, t-shirts and socks, it was getting ridiculous.

So anyway...I gathered all my dirty clothes, dragged the whole load into the elevator, and descended to the basement. But a funny thing happened en route. The elevator quit at the second floor! Just fucking stopped! First, I pressed every button on the panel. Nothing. 

The elevator has an alarm and an emergency phone. I pressed the alarm. Silence. I pressed the emergency phone. Beeps and such but no answer. My adrenaline started to kick in. My first thought was "OMG! I know I'm gonna have to take a major dump this morning, and I have nothing to dump into! Get a hold of yourself! No more adrenaline. It will make you need to crap immediately." 

I gathered myself. "Fuck! I left my phone in the apartment. No way I can call 911 to have the cops get me out of here. It's 7:30 AM on a Saturday. This could take hours!" I reasoned to myself. To my consternation, the elevator has a noisy exhaust fan. It was impossible to hear if anybody was milling about whereupon I could call for help. 

I decided to yell for assistance once every two minutes or so. I knew not to blow out my voice needlessly. Alas, I was a tree falling in the forest. Nobody was up. I continued pressing all the buttons like an idiot on the IRS stimulus check website trying to get something done when there really wasn't any solution but to wait.

About 30 minutes later, the elevator started as mysteriously as it had stopped and descended to the first floor. The door opened and I was free. But my laundry was still in the basement. What to do? I pressed 5 (my floor) and jumped out of the elevator to see if it would make the voyage uneventfully. It did. I pressed L and it came back as if it had never malfunctioned in the first place. 

At that point, I decided I'd take a chance on the elevator. But not before climbing back to my apartment to retrieve my phone in case I got stuck again. It did not! Not wanting to take any more chances, I picked up my laundry and decided to go to the laundromat on First Avenue and use their dryers rather than risk getting stuck again. Why tempt fate, right?

I walked into the commercial spot on 1st Avenue and the guy waved me off. "Only washers. No dryers." Fucking Covid. I humped the laundry back. Now I had two more voyages to the basement! I decided to take a chance. Two more round trips without a glitch and I was home free.

I have no idea what happened to the fucking elevator. But I'm glad it decided to restart, because I didn't seen a soul stirring in the building throughout all the ins and outs and ups and downs this morning brought. For all I know I might still be stuck in there as I type had the elevator not mysteriously fixed itself.