Help…get me out of here!!!
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Friends, there is an interesting story behind this post. I had written a comment in Debra’s blog about my fears and phobias, Debra suggested that I write an article based on my experiences, so here it is. The credit for this post goes to my dear friend Debra El-Ramey.
Help…get me out of here!!!
‘Remember, you are eating for two now’, was the well meaning advice doled out to me by my more experienced mom-friends. I was three months into my second pregnancy and the nausea and other side-effects of the first trimester were a distant memory now. I could eat, I was forever hungry...Ravenous, all the time. I heard eat for two, but to be on the safe side, I ate for four people and gained 20 kilos in six months time.
I have always hated elevators, but as luck would have it, we were allotted a house on the 13th floor and since refusing to take it meant another year’s delay in getting a different house, we took it. I was apprehensive, but resigned to a long trek up the stairs every day, because I just cannot ride in an empty elevator. I need at least one more human being in the lift with me, or I lose my sanity.
Though we did have two operators for the two lifts in the building, they were like the water and electricity supply, one moment here the next gone. With so many power outages, the elevators kept stalling mid way all the time, this heightened my paranoia. My worst nightmare was me getting stuck in an elevator and dying a horrible and agonizing, oxygen-starved death.
I used to dread getting into the elevator and went in only if the operator was there, otherwise I climbed the stairs. In the second trimester I could make it up to the 13th floor with just three breaks in between floors, first five then rest, climb 4 more then rest ,three and home. But seventh month onwards it was a five stop trip home. It was so painful and embarrassing. On lucky days, I would get company going up and I would alight at the floors, the others would, and take the stairs from there.
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There was a pay phone in the lobby and a few notice boards, my modus operandi was to lurk in the lobby and pretend to read the various notices put up there or pretend to make a call, the moment somebody walked towards the elevators, there I was, faster than lightning, but trying to appear unhurried and completely relaxed. I would sweetly enquire, “Which floor?”, and wait with a baited breath for them to say a two digit number so that I didn’t have to climb more than a couple of floors, but most of the times the morons would just say second or fifth floor. My god!! These people were sissies; couldn’t they climb up 5 floors when a very pregnant woman could do it every day? Once in a while some Good Samaritans replied, 12th floor and I could have wept with relief then and kissed them on both the cheeks, god bless them.
A lot of water has flown under the bridge but I am still unchanged in my fear of closed spaces. Trying to make me understand and overcome my irrational fears is an exercise in futility, I am beyond redemption. Kriti Mukherjee, my dear friend and now, also my business partner, lives on the 13th floor too, deja vu…
Whenever I visit her place, which is very often, I call her up from the lobby and she comes down to get me. Her two year old daughter, Agni, whom all address as Guni, also knows that Sulekha aunty is scared to go down in the elevator alone. She accompanies us down when I leave their place, “Mama, I also want to come with you and Sulekha aunty”, bless her innocent and sweet heart.
Friends, the next time you are waiting for an elevator and happen to spot a woman with a crazy and desperate look in her eyes, don’t be alarmed, and just ask her if she wants to ride in the elevator with you. Her gratitude will overwhelm you. It could be me or someone like me, with all her phobias wrapped around her like an invisible cloak. Help her, help me.
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Lucks aka Sulekha
