Panic Button

By Chevy Kepecs | November 2, 2016

Photo: Shutterstock

o this is where I’ll die. In the elevator of a grandiose hotel inBalHarbour.”

Those were the words pounding on my brain as I pounded my fists against the immutable elevator door.

My family was staying in one of the most luxurious resorts inMiami Beach. When we’d arrived the night before I couldn’t believe my good fortune. My unspoiledBrooklyneyes darted from the window walls to the glass rooms to the modern-styled sofas framing the parlor and then back to the window walls again.

In fact those window walls had been covered in shades when I first glanced in their direction. I had fingered them gently when someone yelled “Don’t touch!” and up flew the shades — in the entire suite! With the touch of my finger I had instigated three mansion-sized rooms to shoot up their window shades. Then I found out that somebody had flicked a switch in unison with my touching the shades and that had been my first glimpse of the breathtaking view outside our windows.

But that was last night.

Tonight I took my laptop down to the lobby since there was no service in our suite. As soon as I plugged my laptop into the wall and settled onto one of the couches with my laptop on my lap (mind the pun) one of the doormen rushed over to me with a desk. Before I could say “Thank you ” he offered me a glass of water. Boy was I enjoying this royal treatment!

When I was finally finished on my laptop I removed it from the desk (which included a brow-furrowing extracting of plugs) collected my cell phone and keys thanked the doorman and the lady at the front desk and headed into one of the elevators. It took me about 30 seconds to realize it wasn’t moving. I looked around and noticed the Shabbos schedule stuck to the wall. Oh so this was a Shabbos elevator. Okay that explained it. I pressed “door open.” It didn’t. Now I know nothing about how Shabbos elevators work but at that point I started panicking. I have quite an overactive imagination which tends to jump to drastic conclusions in a minimum of seconds.

My next step was to press the alarm button. I mean that was the logical thing to do wasn’t it? A full minute passed and there was not an indication of humanity in sight. At that point a full band of alarm bells were ringing in my head. Okay so this is a Shabbos elevator which means it’s only active on Shabbos which means that right now I might as well be in a death dungeon. Suddenly my eyes fell on the phone in my hand. Relief surged through my body. Of course! Why hadn’t I thought of this before? I’d call my mother and she’d alert the security staff or whoever it was that needed to be alerted that her daughter was stuck in the Shabbos elevator on a Thursday night.

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