The guy who was trapped in an elevator

Der Blogosphere has been full of the stories and time-lapse video of a guy trapped in an elevator for 41 hours a few years ago. I’m sure you’ve mostly all seen it, so no link here as I’m too lazy to find a good one.

This guy lost his job through the trauma of going through this.

I too have a trapped-in-an-elevator story. I think it may be almost more horrible than this guy’s. Many years ago (early 1980’s?) I was attending the Mensa gathering in New York City, which was held in that Trump hotel near Grand Central Station on 42nd Street. At the same time as our gathering was an Amway convention. I took an elevator and it got stuck. Imagine being stuck for an hour in an elevator half filled with Mensa members and half filled with Amway salesmen.

It’s a wonder any of us got out alive.

6 Responses to “The guy who was trapped in an elevator”

  1. mrpandabehr says:

    You’re a Mensa member, that is awesome.

    How long were you trapped in the elevator for?

  2. chrishansenhome says:

    We were in there for about 3/4 of an hour. When I finally got back to my room, the management of the hotel had put a vase of flowers and an iced bottle of champagne there to “compensate” me for the stress of being stuck in an elevator. I had no one to drink it with 🙁 .

  3. mrpandabehr says:

    I’m sorry you had to drink it alone.

    Was it pitch dark the entire time you were in the elevator?

  4. chrishansenhome says:

    NO, the power never went off, thank goodness. We were just stuck.

  5. smlee4 says:

    what’s the catch here?

  6. chrishansenhome says:

    I presume you know what Mensa is. Amway is a pyramid-selling organisation started in the US (Amway-AMerican WAY) that ostensibly sells cleaning products but really sells dealerships and subdealerships. You only get a good income if you started early and sold dealerships rather than detergents.

    You can imagine what an elevator half full of very intelligent people and half full of deluded salespeople would be like if you were stuck in it for almost an hour.