Fun_People Archive
7 Nov
When Nature Calls, She Calls Collect

Date: Sun,  7 Nov 93 23:07:52 PST
To: Fun_People
Subject: When Nature Calls, She Calls Collect

 From: renee@netcom.com (Renee)
 Subject: When Nature Calls, She Calls Collect

    Last week, with a good fifteen to twenty of us in there, the elevator
stopped between floors fifteen and sixteen.  No sweat, this happens all the
time.  So we waited.  And waited.  Called on the emergency phone, pressed
the alarm.  They know, they know.  After an hour or so I noticed one man
seemed a little more uncomfortable with the situation the rest of us,
fidgeting with his collar, shifting his weight around from foot to foot,
making the whole car even more edgy.
    An older woman next to him held his hand.  "It's okay.  My daughter's
afraid to fly..."
    "No," he said, sotto voce, "I have to pee."
    Everyone heard it.  All our own worst fears realized.
    "Just go," someone said.  "We'll live."
    "I can't.  I have an interview."
    He *was* looking good.  
    "Push the door open a little.  It'll be okay."
    A burly guy in the front of the car opened the door about half a foot.
The poor guy in the suit moved to the front of the car and we all heard him
unzip.  And we waited.
    And waited.
    Nothing.
    A whisper made its way through the car.  We all turned around.
    It began.  A few seconds later, the unthinkable.  
    "Hey, what the fook!?" echoed up through the shaft.  Now you *don't*
want to pee on the heads of grouchy elevator repairmen who've been working
round-the-clock, apologizing for what wasn't their fault anyhow.
    "Quick.  Stop."
    He couldn't.
    The car lurched and dropped about half a floor.  He stopped.
    "Don't do that, Tony!  That car's near capacity, you stupid fuck."  We
could hear it all, clear as if we were on the ground.
    "I'm sorry," the guy yelled down.  "Sorry."
    But the rest of us had only just begun.

© 1993 Peter Langston