Well, darn it; this column is not going as was planned, and, unfortunately, is going to have very little to do with actual sports. I had envisioned a nice quiet Sunday afternoon, stowed away in a forgotten storeroom of the motel that I work at, slowly crafting a modern sports classic — an in depth examination of the art and peril that comes with flying as a paragliding camera operator.
Instead, I am here — sitting on a shoehorned scissor lift, stuck like a flooded cow on the third floor in a broken elevator. I have been here for at least an hour, enduring the worst of a heat wave that is the talk of the coast now. Normally, temperatures are consistently in the 60's here in the “California's Refrigerator,” but this week things have turned drastically hot, with today's high expected in the high 70's. It has been enough of a shock that folks here are discussing the danger of sleeping with open windows, and one of my co-workers had to go out and buy a fan for the first time in her 25 years here.
Normally, I would embrace this warmth. I moved away from those high mountains for a little beach time, some sun and heat to unwind in. Unfortunately, my research was limited to the lush prose of a gaggle of literary giants, all of whom lived and wrote here, but whom each failed to mention the tragic, constant chill. Monterey is more like Alaska than Hawaii, and even San Franciscan's come here to cool off. But now, in this tiny steel box for the past hour, I am overheating. It must be close to a hundred degrees and rising, and I have been told, ever so gracefully, that (ahem) IF the cable holds long enough, the Otis elevator man will be here in about two hours, so, like any forward thinking desert rat, I take my clothes off and wait. I figure that if things deteriorate or linger on, I can drink the sweat that has soaked my sweater vest.
All around me there is chaos. Bells ding, buzzers hiss, lights flash, and outside people scramble to find a solution. I would like to think that my comrades merely want to find a way to save me, but I have a sneaking suspicion that they just want unfettered access to the service elevator again. It is the only one other than the guest lifts, and use of those is seriously taboo, off limits to all of the various carts and wagons that course through the bowels of a modern hotel.
Why I am here is simple. I did not get the memo about the new scissor lift, and thus tried to drive it onto the creaky old elevator to go upstairs to the ballroom, where the action is — where lights and drapes and giant American flags await their hanging. And now, thanks to this slip in communication, I am That Guy. The One Stuck In The Elevator. Everyone on the property knows. I can hear bus drivers discussing it on the radios that chatter beyond the steel doors that separate me and relative freedom. I can hear a crowd gathering as I go into my second lost hour.
While I want more than anything for the blasted doors to open, for fresh air and water and a new shirt to wear, I also hope that it doesn't happen too quickly, so that I may dress for my rescue party, avoid the embarrassment of a naked save. To avoid this I have built up a curtain system on the front of the man-lift, using my trousers. The other option is the negative one, where I end up squashed and splattered far down below in a small hole, and if that is my fate I prefer to meet it sans dress slacks and the company sweater.
The exact status of the elevator is unclear. Initially, there was laughter. After a few minutes, when all of the obvious troubleshooting efforts had been implemented, serious panic set in, compounded by the reaction of the staff engineer. I relayed to him what I could see from my squat position atop the lift within the lift. The “floor” is not aligned with the “deck”, sagging by a good half foot, which, apparently means that I am “screwed.”
As I wait for the Otis man to arrive and deliver me from this high, hot hell, I am left with little to do but text message this column to our fearless editor, Jon Bastian, as it unfolds. There is no time for sports when you are hanging like a lead battleship by a fraying bungee cord. I wonder, when the cable snaps and the Big Drop occurs, will the noise even give the golfers any pause as they hack their way around the course outside, out where the coastal breeze blows and natural light rains down upon their unstuck skin. I would like to think that, heaven forbid, of course, but realistically — if there was no way out, that my sudden demise would lead to at least a few unsettled shankings into the kelpy sea. Or a hole in one, perhaps that would be a glass half full finale.
Just as I begin to seriously stress, a calm voice booms into my steel tomb.
“Have you tried to press the open and shut buttons at the same time?” a new voice says in a leisurely Hispanic accent. It is Oren from Otis.
“No, didn't try that!” I reply, putting on my pants. Action seems imminent.
“Well, do it.”
I press both buttons at once. The inner door groans, and then slowly opens. I push it along until it is flush with the wall. Then the outer door creaks open in the same manner, and I can see freedom in the form of my golf shirted A/V brethren.
“Well don't just sit there, come on out,” someone says, and I climb out fast as a kid on a new set of monkey bars.
Free at last, I stumble outside, into the basically mild/brutally hot day. Now, what to write for my sports column?
Corby Anderson is just glad to be alive. His next column will be about sports, he promises.
