Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Elevator Fun

I've got about 500 million things to blog about, but not too much time. However, I have to pass this one along. Today I took my four boys with me to the dr.'s office so they could draw some of my blood for a thyroid test. When we got into the elevator, they enlightened me to a new, fun game. As soon as the elevator doors slid shut, Ross and Mark immediately started screaming and rolling around on the elevator floor. As there was no one else in the thing with us, I started cracking up. It was great fun. They did a repeat performance on the way back to the van. Ross told me that they had done this in the hospital elevators on the way to my room a few weeks ago. When we got back to my parents house later, I told my mom about this fun activity. I was under the assumption that this was inspired by my brother, Trent. However, to my surprise, my mom said that it was my father who started this madness!!! Can you believe it?! Yes, my father is the original Sever nut, but it's been so long since I've seen much of that side of him. I'd almost forgotten that it existed. Too funny!

This leads me to ask: What other fun things could you do in an elevator? Preferably a crowded one. When I was in college, there was a group of us music students who all had to take the same German class. Since the German class took place across the campus from the music building, we would all walk over in a big herd. On the way, we had to take an elevator. These were particularly OLD elevators, and they frankly scared me. To make it even worse, we would all cram in the elevator and jump simultaneously, every time. So, what could you do in a crowded elevator for fun? Have a coughing fit. Scratch like crazy... develop some sort of a twitch... talk to the invisible man next to you, maybe ask him if he smells smoke... Isn't there a Monty Python sketch about this? I'll have to look it up one of these days. An elevator would be a fun place to play terrets! You could rock back and forth, nervously muttering to yourself about bombs. Well, I've got to run. More later.

15 comments:

Brad Carter said...

ALWAYS press the alarm button. All it does is ring a bell. And if an authority figure yells at you, you can just say you hit the wrong button.

Unscrewing the light bulbs makes a dark, scary elevator which is illuminated only by the buttons.

Renae said...

Brad, you have experience in these deviant behaviors? You are so wicked! Funny though.

Dana Cheryl said...

I got stuck in an elevator at the St. George temple once. I was leading a group of a local stake up to the solemn assembly room. Since this room is only open a couple times a year folks were excited and no one wanted to wait for the next elevator & guide. So we were stuck for several minutes and then the stake president asked me if I'd pray being that I was the only offical temple worker present. (It's drives me nuts when people accuse the church of beating women down!) Eventually we forced the doors open to find that we were between floors. We had to crawl up and out this little opening into the celestial room. How funny is that?!

On the up side we got to use the big spiral staircase that seldom if ever gets used...

I love elevators!

Brad Carter said...

Don't you know I'm a professional jerk, Renae?

I just remembered another elevator story. We were at a hotel in Detroit and they had 6 elevators. We took each elevator to the very top floor (18 floors, I think) and jammed them open by placing an ashtray in the way of the door. Then we ran down to the lobby to giggle at all the people waiting for elevators that would never arrive.

It was hilarious until the fire...

Eyepoke said...

Dad is a deviant deep down...

Sometimes I wonder if he is less so that way now because we are just too much competetion deep down.

Brad... what can I say- lol

Dana thats a pretty good one too. Crawling out inbetween floors in a 100+ year old mormon temple... In your white dresses and such. Must have been memorable!

Mary said...

In an elevator going down, we ALWAYS jump as high as we can as soon as the elevator starts to move. I don't know if you really jump higher, but we always imagined that it did when we were kids.

Speaking of getting stuck in elevators, when I was 9 years old, I went to work with my dad in an LA skyscraper in the middle of the night (The graveyard shift). The security guard let us into the elevator so we could go up. At the last second they decided to switch elevators because this elevator had a ton of buttons pushed, and my dad had to sign on. My dad (and another adult friend who came that day) made it out of the elevator before the doors closed, but I - the 9-year-old - did not. Dad told me not to worry and they'd meet me up there. Well, I was a little panicked so I jumped off the elevator at the first stop. I was stuck on the 3rd floor of an abandoned skyscraper at something crazy like 4 am. I didn't know I could catch the elevator back to the ground floor and the security guard would have put me on the next elevator up. I remembered that my dad worked on the 17th floor, so I found the stairwell and started the hike. I had the most active imagination ever when I was a kid too! I was climbing 14 floors in a dark scary stairwell by myself imagining that any second some monster was waiting around the corner to rip me to pieces! I was never so glad to see my daddy in my life! We made up for it by running into Danny DeVito later that day. (Ok, worst Hollywood star ever to get to see, but at least you know I'm not making it up!)

Renae, I found a great background for your site that you really should use from the cutest blog on the block. I can't put the html here, but if you want it, email me (I'll give you a hint, it's really cute frogs).

Malauna said...

The four 9-year-old girls I took to the free movie yesterday said that the only way to ride an elevator is to sit on the hand rails in the corner. (Of course, you need to have the bum of a 9-year-old girl to pull that one off.:D)

Mary said...

And now I know they wear white dresses in the temple ceremonies...you guys will leak all of the temple secrets to me before you know what you've done!

timpani76 said...

Dang you guys! Now we have to kill Mary!

Do we draw straws or what?

lizS said...

oooh no. she's MY best friend. i get dibs.

Dana Cheryl said...

I'd be more than happy to fly in for the occasion! ;)

And yes it was very memorable...

Can ya'll imagine being in the Celestial Room and seeing 22 people all in their whites (some of them having just finished an endowment) crawling out up and out of an elevator shaft?! Everyone got a kick out of it. It's moments like that make me love my life. :)

Oh we could just brainwash Mary & force her to join us. I mean I'd hate to lose her blog. Reading it is one of the highlights of my week!

Speaking of the temple... Tonight is my first night back as an ordinace worker since returning from KY.

Mary you must stop reading at this point... This is a big, big Mormon secret!

OK now that the non-mormons are gone... ;)

I'm so psyched to eat at the cafeteria! I mean all the temple cafeterias are great but man St. G is like five star!! The others are a measley 4 1/2. Yeah be jealous. I'm eatin' good tonight!

Mary said...

Please, everyone, let's not all fight over who gets to kill Mary. There's plenty Mary to go around. I'm sure you can all have a piece. And DC, I'm really touched that you like my blog that much...*sniffle* BTW, what was the BIG Mormon secret? You have my curiosity up now, and I really wanna know! C'mon, you can trust me! I'm cool, we'll keep it on the D.L. (What did she type after she sent me away? What was that last paragraph about?! I'm dying over here!)

Dana Cheryl said...

Mary, you need to stop asking questions that you're not ready to handle!!!

The information contained within that paragraph could quite possible cause a stamapede of people rushing us. We prefer the the methodical, spirit-led missionary approach in leading people to the Church. :)

Mary said...

Wait, wait...rushing you in a good way or a bad way? Are you talking about mass conversions that the church is not yet prepared to handle? Or are we talking about witch-hunts and legalized Mormon-killing again?

Dana Cheryl said...

I meant in a good way! We'd have mass baptisms just to enter the temple if the above secret were leaked. lol

Unfortunately the mormon-hating has never ended... It wouldn't take much for those folks to pick up the pitch forks again. Sad but true.