Getting stuck in an elevator and other adventures
Each Monday and Friday since the beginning of the month I think to myself, another week in the office, I really should get around to sharing this… and then it doesn’t happen. And then today I got stuck in the outside handicap elevator. Clearly a sign that it’s time to get writing. I mean, who gets stuck in an elevator? and while her son is asleep in her office? I must be a terrible mother.
So here we are. I’ve been back at work since July 5th and Nathan has been joining me on Tuesdays and Thursdays. It’s been two weeks of Tim offering us a ride into Boston so that he could help me get baby, baby bag, mommy bag, pump and stroller into the building, and two weeks of me being afraid one or more of these items will go flying down Newbury street as I tried to haul it all out the door at the end of the day to go home – time to figure out a better system. The office is technically handicap accessible, so it shouldn’t have been that hard. Ha!
With Nathan asleep in my office, I headed down with Lori, the keeper of the master key, to figure out how to use the handicap elevator and it’s funny key system before having to do it with a grumpy baby and all our stuff. And yes, I did first stick me head in the office next door so that someone would know I was going to be away from my perfectly happy, sleeping baby for all of two seconds. No different than when I leave a sleeping Nathan to go brush my teeth or something while at home. That is, until we got stuck in the elevator.
The key opened the elevator door just fine. We got in, closed the door, put the key in its little activation slot, pushed the up button, and nothing happened. We pushed it again. Nothing. Then we tried to open the door to give up and go back inside. And nothing happened. Maybe the elevator thought it was on the upper level and thus wouldn’t open the lower door? So we pushed the down button and then tried to open the door. Still nothing. Murphy’s Law says that if you leave your baby sleeping happily in your office and then get stuck in an elevator, he’s going to wake up with an exploding diaper or thinking he’s dying of hunger. Knowing this to be true I wanted to call and warn Lauren in the office next to mine that there might be a fussy baby any minute and I was really sorry, but I wasn’t going to be there to solve it. At least he’s not that loud? But she didn’t answer her office phone or cell phone – she was already comforting an awake, super mad baby. Next we called our colleagues in Facilities. Alan, on his way to lunch, was luckily not yet out the door, and came over with his set of keys to rescue us. Except that his key didn’t work either. In the end, Alan took the roof off the elevator, lowered in a step ladder, and we climbed out.
Needless to say, Nathan and I will not be using the elevator Thursday morning.
In other news, yesterday we defrosted the last of the milk in our freezer (victory!) so have begun finally implementing first in, first out with the remaining milk supply. Feb milk is slowly making it’s way back to us from Lexington (we could probably take all of it, but I refuse to give up my entire freezer again). Hopefully this week we’ll figure out our defrosting needs and be able to come up with an actual plan for using up the 7 remaining freezers full / getting the majority of it back into our house. Oh, and remember the milk bank? (I know – I don’t either, that was like months ago.) They JUST sent me a kit to go get a blood test so they can decide if they really truly do want any of the milk. I’m not sure I even have the time to tell them I’ve moved on – moved on to things like tracking down less than $80 a bottle infant multivitamins, finally buying a stroller and praying, praying I do not get stuck in another elevator.