Bring out the gimp

Yesterday was a comedy of errors, with a little bit of tragedy thrown in.

I woke up around 11 and, because I wasn't ready to get out of bed yet, fired up the laptop and did a little surfing. You know, played a little Bejeweled 2, checked to see if Cute Guy Who Lives in My Building posted a Missed Connection to me yet -- the usual. Anyway, after I woke up enough to start thinking about coffee and breakfast, I shut down the computer and stood up. Only, unbeknownst to me, my foot hadn't yet awoken. There was a crack, followed by a buckling of the leg, followed by me collapsing onto my bed yelling, "Oh my God ow ow oh my God ow ow!" while clutching said foot. The foot, it is sprained.

As y'all know, every Sunday The Roommate and I host a little dinner party. That means there is shit that needs to get done on Sundays, like wine purchasing, cleaning and cooking. Luckily, L'il Suzy was playing guest chef (mounds of lasagna, YUM), so the cooking was taken care of. I still had to buy wine and wrapping paper for gifts and take out the trash, though.

A bit of information you'll need before I go on. For over a week recently, there was a big gaping hole in my hallway where the elevator used to be. Presumably, the idea was to fix the deathtrap elevator that has claimed many a Chinese delivery man over the past year. While I normally take the stairs down and the elevator up, I didn't think I could handle five flights with a sprained foot, so I hopped in and pressed "1."

The big silver door closed and then… nothing. The elevator didn't move. The "door open" button didn't do anything. Neither did the "reset" one. I frantically pushed buttons while beginning to notice just what a tiny space I was confined to. Panicked, I began to lay on the "alarm" button. A whole lot. After a few minutes, I was starting to sweat, so I took off my down coat and threw it on the ground with my purse. I then decided to just push down the alarm button and hold it until someone came to help.

After about 20 minutes, inexplicably, the door opened. I opened the door and peeked out into the hallway. No one was there. Scared that it would close and trap me in again, I did a Twister maneuver, where I held the door open with my one good foot and kind of crawled the upper half of my body in to retrieve my coat and purse. Still shaking, I made my way into my apartment where The Roommate was cleaning. She looked at me, alarmed.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"I just got stuck in the elevator," I said.

"That was you? I heard the alarm and said to myself, 'poor bastard.' I figured you would have taken the stairs."

The only thing more awesome than spraining your foot and getting stuck in an elevator? Having to walk up and down five flights of stairs after that. Twice. On the bright side, my dysfunctional NYC family and I exchanged gifts last night and I got a Michael's Crafts book, an Engrish.com T-shirt, a subscription to Cook's Illustrated and yummy Cinnamon bun-flavored Philosophy stuff. So I wasn't hating life completely.