Stuck in the Middle with You

On a recent trip to Mammoth, I got stuck in an elevator with my dad. Now, if you've met my dad, or even if you've heard me talk about him, you know this is not an ideal situation.

After we established that the elevator was, indeed, not going to move, we pressed the call button. The operator suggested that we try to open the doors. I went over to the doors and tried to pull them open, as instructed. My dad yelled at me to stop, so I stopped, and got my fingers crushed in the doors. As I was jumping up and down, yelping in pain, and cradling my fingers, my dad was shouting at me and trying to get me to hold his Blackberry - which I promptly grabbed in my palms and threw on the ground (I tend toward the dramatic).

I then got a lecture on how I am "too impulsive," and he hopes I learned a lesson (not to follow the instructions of the elevator tech guy?). I shouted at him to "shut up, shut up, would you please just shut your mouth?" He did. And then I tried to break the tension by asking if he had ever been stuck in an elevator before. His response? "Don't change the subject." It went on like that for about twenty minutes, and then all of a sudden something shifted. I don't even remember how, but we wound up sitting next to each other on the floor of the elevator looking at the pictures he's taken on his phone (we're both amateur photographers). Thinking back on it, it makes me tear up a little, because I think that's a memory of time with my father that I'll have in the back of my mind forever.

A friend of mine posted a quote on Facebook from his father - "There are three sides to every story. My side, your side and the truth. And no one's lying." And I'm sure if you asked my dad what happened in that elevator, he would tell you a different version of events.

I later said that Mammoth must hate me - last time I went up there, my car broke down, and this time, I got trapped in an elevator and lost my turquoise sunglasses.

But I don't think that Mammoth hates me. I think that Mammoth forces me to assess my relationship with people and things. I also think that the 45 minutes that I was stuck in the elevator with Dad was worth at least two therapy sessions.

And the condo found my glasses and mailed them back to me. :)