Wait - Dad left you in the elevator by yourselves?

Here's a little gem of a story from this past week...

Dave took Reese and Luke to the library one evening. They started to take the elevator (and had already pressed “2”) when forgot he had last week’s books still in his hands. Naturally, Dave asked Reese to hold the “Door Open” button while he ran 25 feet to put the books into the return bin (it's what any parent who has a 5 year-old-who-is-well-familiar-with-buttons-in-a-library-that-is-like-a-second-home would do, right? I probably would have. :) ) But even though Reese had the button pushed the door starts to close anyway and as Dave is putting the books in the bin, he heard Reese say, “Dad, the door’s closing. The door’s closing!” as it bangs shut.


In one second flat, both boys began yelling and stamping their feet as the elevator lifts off. Folks at the check out counter are looking at Dave, mouths agape. Dave looks at them and says, “Well, I guess I’d better take the stairs to the second floor” and begins running up the stairs. The screams could readily be heard throughout the library.

Dave got to the second floor as the elevator doors opened. The two spill out in tears. It took him a couple of minutes to calm them down in the bathroom while he was trying to hide his face as he was laughing so hard at the absurdity of the situation. Once they were calm, they were able to enjoy their time at the library.

On the way home, Dave tried to bring some levity to the mood as the boys were still shaken up the experience. He asked who would be the first to tell Mommy about their fun adventure. Luke said, “That was a bad adventure ... bad adventure!” in true Lukie style. Reese finally cracked a smile over the situation.

At home, Reese starting telling me the story. The first thing out of my mouth was, “Wait – Dad left you in the elevator by yourselves?!” You know, because little men sometimes get excited and get the facts all muddled together. So, Dave began to clarify what had happened. When he got the part of imitating the boys (and we could picture them looking at each other, eyes wide and yelling AAAAAHHHHH!) all of us couldn't help but laugh hysterically over it. Reese got a big kick over this retelling.

Lessons learned: (1) Elevator “Door Open” buttons only work for a few seconds and (2) Despite how grown up they want to be, one quarter of a minute in an elevator by themselves reduced our two little intrepid “Dad, I’m big enough to do that” explorers into helpless puddles which is probably not a bad thing - Reese may be more willing to wait for Dave or I before pressing any buttons.

Seriously though, Dave would never have done this in another place. Though it does make one think about the choices we make, for better or for worse, in places familar and comfortable...