The Elevator Doors

 ... a great place for an evening  visit ...

May 2, 2013

 Greg and I came up the elevator late at night after our tour of the Tokyo Landmark Tower.

The ship didn't docked in Yokohama until 4:00 pm. We slipped down and onto the bus to see night lights of Tokyo. I walked to the back of the elevator, to allow lots of others to enter. Only early diners got on as well, and only a few of them, one woman holding a take-away plate from the formal dining room, nicely covered with a silver top. She was still enjoying the euphoria of the evening’s alcohol and when the doors of the elevator closed it didn’t go anywhere. “Could you please open the door for me? My purse is caught in the door.” I think the men in the elevator didn’t know she was talking to them, for no one did anything, so she said again, “Could you please open the door for me. My purse is caught in the door.”

Tokyo's version of the Eiffel Tower

I was at the back and looked quizzically at a woman beside me.  I whispered, “How can a person get their purse caught in the door of an elevator?"

I mimed whooshing my arm backward like I had a purse trailing in the wind.

 Fine.  Whatever she had done, the elevator wasn't moving.

The men in the elevator took a long time figuring out why we were really stopped.  They were closest to the elevator control buttons.  Finally they got the door open, her purse out and we were on our way again, going to the seventh floor.

Greg called from the middle of the elevator, “This is our floor.”

She didn’t move.

Again, “This is our floor.” She didn’t move.

“Doors closing.”

Greg pushed on by her, a thing he never does, but he seemed to want to get off at the right floor.

I was further back in the elevator and decided to follow suit.  In doing so, I pushed by and brushed out of her hands the metal top that was covering the plate of food she was holding.  The top went clattering to the ground, landing in the elevator doors. I didn’t know what to do, since it had taken the men a long time to figure out how to get her purse out of the door.  I wanted to make my exit in a dignified fashion but only had a second to figure out what to do, since there weren't many options for me.   I held the door open with my foot (undignified), bent down and picked up the tray cover (banged up aluminum, not silver), looked at her food (shouldn't have thought I had to comment on that, but there was this deadly silence), put the cover back on it (someone had to carry it) and said, “Cheesecake is just what I would have brought up to the room as well (big fat lie, since when I am through in the dining room, there is no way I want ANYTHING else to eat).”

I hope she made it back to her own room with both her purse and the cheesecake.

Greg and I had our fun out on the town that night.

Arta