Might As Well Start Now

If you say you'll laugh about this one day, you might as well start now.

After yesterday, I've been laughing so much my ribs hurt.

It was one of those days. It started out with getting packed up to go into Scarecrow's office at Gloria's Books and Adult Day Care. He has mostly been working from home, which is amazingly wonderful for a number of reasons, but occasionally a little face time is required. As usual, I was going along, to hang out in an empty corner of the warehouse, entertaining myself and generally staying out from underfoot. Since my laptop is what I use to keep myself busy and out of trouble, I was trying to be unobtrusive about watching Scarecrow pack it up, to make sure that the earbuds and microphone and AC adapter and other bits all made it into the bag.

The commute to the other end of town wasn't too bad, all things considered. Even in Seattle, a little rain can do bad things to rush-hour traffic. It was only after we got there that Scarecrow realized that he had left my carefully-packed laptop at home. (Carefully-packed lunch, too, but it is possible to get lunch in Renton, if need be.)

Well, without my laptop, I'm pretty much screwed. Ironically, at one time, a day in a book warehouse would have been my idea of a really good time. Now, although I'm surrounded by books on just about any topic you can imagine and some that you can't, I can't pick them up, can't turn the pages. Screwed.

Not only that. I use the laptop to IM Scarecrow when I need his help; like for a bathroom break. Screwed.

Well, whatever. I can use the time to practice meditation. I've been meaning to do that. Or I can do some serious napping. Whatever. It's only eight or nine hours. No big deal.

So as I pulled into the wheelchair lift to negotiate the 4 feet between the parking level and the warehouse door, I was chatting with Scarecrow, secretly congratulating myself for not going postal over the carefully-packed laptop still sitting next to the front door at home.

"We're not there yet," I said, when the lift stopped halfway up.

Scarecrow pressed the button again. He turned the key off and on, then pressed the button again.

"It's not going," he said. "It's stuck."

He checked to make sure the doors were closed, and the power appeared to be on, and the other obvious stuff. Nothing. It was going just a minute ago. It was working fine. It just stopped.

OK, a couple of minutes ago, when I thought I was screwed? I really wasn't. Now I'm screwed. 

The maintenance guy who takes care of this kind of thing wasn't in yet. I'm sure this was just the kind of thing he was looking forward to on a Monday morning – a medium-sized old lady in a 300 pound power chair stuck in the lift.

I have to say he took it very well, particularly considering that this wasn't the only disaster awaiting him; one of the conveyor belts in the warehouse was stuck, too. After messing with some fuses and circuit breakers and other obvious stuff, he conceded that he had no idea what the problem was with the lift. He called the company that serviced the thing, stressing that with a medium-sized old lady stuck in the lift and it looking like it was about to start raining any minute, this was a problem of some immediacy. They said they'd be there in 10 minutes. Maybe 15.

It probably wasn't any longer than that, but I've got to tell you it feels pretty stupid, being stuck 2 feet up a 4 foot lift, waiting for the rain to start.

The lift guy used a 1 1/8 inch socket with a nice long lever to crank the lift up manually, about an angstrom at a time. Whatever works.

Once we were inside, Scarecrow set me up with a movie on his iPod Touch (have I mentioned that I'm easily entertained?). That was working fine, until a reminder popped up, stopping the movie and taking over the display. And bonging. And bonging. And bonging. And bonging. And bonging. Now, Scarecrow is pretty hard of hearing, and he's got that alarm set so it'll get his attention if the iPod is in his pocket. I was getting it through earbuds. Since I couldn't dismiss the pop-up or take out the earbuds, this went on for 15 minutes, bonging, and bonging, and bonging, until the device finally gave up.

After the bonging stopped I got some time to practice my meditation, or maybe I was taking a nap, when Scarecrow stopped to check in. He dismissed the pop-up, and restarted the movie.

Five minutes later, the reminder popped up again. He had obviously hit Snooze instead of OK. Bong. Bong. Bong. Bong. Bong.

The next time Scarecrow stopped in, he said he was going to talk to Bob (of Bob's Books and Adult Day Care), and then we'd call it a day. Since he was only going to be a few minutes, he packed up the earbuds, set the iPod on the desk, and went off to talk to Bob. Five minutes later, the reminder went off again. Bong. Bong. Bong.  Now I remember – there's no such thing as a short conversation with Bob. Bong. Bong. Bong. By now it's really pretty funny. And as long as it's not going off right my ear, I can laugh.

Might as well start now. I know I'll laugh about this someday.

The little rodent who had built a snug little nest inside the lift machinery, only to find out there was a good reason that nobody lived there? Well, he had the worst kind of bad day.