Stuck

So today Alan and I got stuck in the elevator of our temporary quarters. Between two floors, with the classic view of the concrete floor and half a door below it and half a door above it. I pushed all the various buttons available, hoping that I wouldn't need the alarm button. I tried opening either of the doors which didn't work - to my relief, actually. I didn't want those doors to open, fearing I'd be tempted to crawl out just when the elevator started moving again. Severed spine and all that. Too much TV, I know. Well, nothing budged. I rang the alarm bell and... nothing happened. I mean, the alarm bell rang but no reassuring voice spoke out of the loudspeaker (which, btw, I couldn't see anywhere anyway). For the first time that I ever pushed the alarm button it was very anticlimactic. Next step: I banged against the lower door until the guys from "Alarm Service" who have their office right next to the elevator door finally deemed to look what all the ruckus was about. The first guy only spoke Romanian and left again to get another guy who spoke some English and together they managed to inquire why I was banging the door.

Uh, because I was stuck? (Wasn't that obvious?) At this moment Alan got a bit restless and tried to climb out of his stroller. I tried to calm him down by reassuring him that we wouldn't starve (we'd just come from the market and bakery, so there was food aplenty) or be forced to soil ourselves (we'd also bought toilet paper and paper towels). It seemed to work and he settled back into the stroller. I didn't even need to bribe him with the strawberry tarts. So the Alarm guy (who, to make this clear, is just an employee of a security company that happens to have their HQ in our building) suggested that I should push all the buttons. OK. So I tried that again. Nothing happened. After about five minutes I called Natsa, our nanny, on my mobile and told her that I was stuck in the elevator. I don't know why I did that, I guess I wanted some commiseration. I was just about to call Doug when I, again, pushed the buttons and all of a sudden the elevator covered another meter or so and stopped only five centimeters below the second floor where we live. It was close enough for the doors to release the saftey and open -- and we were free again. I guess I will just avoid elevators for the next little while.