Metropolitan Diary: No Girls’ Night Out
Stuck in an elevator, and writing a last will and testament in a flurry of text messages.
It was supposed to be an epic girls’ night, but as I was heading out, I got stuck in an elevator on East 60th Street.
There was one other person in the elevator, a guy. Just him and me. I sat down and tried not to panic. I took my shoes off. Minutes ticked by.
The guy and I made small talk, but after a half-hour, he started to get sweaty and wild-eyed.
“Hey, do you believe in God?” he whispered in a menacing tone.
After 45 minutes, I was losing hope, and began a last will and testament in the form of a lot of texts. I wrote to my husband. I wrote to my girlfriends. I wrote of love and legacy, of gratitude for our too-short time together. I shared the profound lessons I had learned from facing “the end.”
I pressed “send” each time, but my phone had no signal, no service, no Wi-Fi.
Then, out of nowhere, after I had been stuck there for an hour, the claw of a crowbar appeared. There was banging, and the elevator shook. As the door was ratcheted open an inch, I crawled over to peek out.
I stood up and put my shoes on, and furiously typed an addendum to my will: “The FDNY is here!!! Hallelujah!” The firefighters took my hand, and I climbed out into the world.