We listen closely at the door and hear nothing that makes us concerned that their is a Lebanon Mucka Mucka Man hiding behind it and open the door. I take one step forward and realize it is a mop closet, I normally would call it a broom closet, but since it contains mops and I seem to have stuck my foot into a bucket of old mop water, I am going with mop closet. I exit the mop closet and head to the other door marked EXIT.
Nancy opens the door and we step into the hallway only to realize the lights are on and we probably do not need the PFL after all, but out of sheer obstinance I say, “Nancy, do not set down that PFL, you never know when we might need the light later.”
Nancy does not argue with me. Besides, I think she wants to keep the fish when we are done as she seems to have picked out only purple and yellow ones. Looking back on the door, I am pretty sure we are right about the room number as there is a placard above this door with A-2115 on it.
We follow the signage indicating that the elevator is to our left. I see the Elevator and it has a somewhat strange sign stuck to the front of it.
Good thing I had read the cover of Mistaphel’s guide to Cheering up your Depressed Elevator or I might have been really confused. Not even thinking about who OZ might be and why we would Knock on an elevator, Nancy and I turn around and head for the stairs.
“Dad, I think someone in this building has a sense of humor. That sign is just like the one at the gates of the Emerald City in the Wizard of OZ: ‘Bell out of order Please Knock’ even though the bell worked. I bet the Elevator works just fine.”
“Nancy, you are absolutely right, on third thought let’s take the elevator.”
We turn back once again and head for the elevator. Nancy presses the up button and sure enough the doors open. We hear a deep voice coming from inside the elevator that says “My name is Bob, Bob Vator, Ella is working on her fear of heights and our son Darth is off doing some experimentation with a tuba respirator. What floor would you like me to take you too and if I am feeling up to it, I will take you there without delay, unless you would rather hear me sing ‘America’ from West Side Story. Ella says I am quite good. I have chairs so you could sit while I sing and then I could do a number from Spamalot, but that might be entirely too silly.”
“Nancy, on second thought let’s take the stairs.”
“Fine, if you don’t like my singing, you can all just get out of me anyways, do you think I like taking people up and down and up and down, when all I really want to do is sing.”
Nancy and I exit the elevator quickly and head back to the stairs. “Dad, that was a close one, we could have been stuck their for hours listening to the Bobavater singing songs from musicals.”
“Right and no one likes that.”
We open the door to the stair well and luckily no weird voice offers to read poetry at us while we climb up to the T floor. Let me see T is 20 on my secret decoder ring, so T must be the 20th floor. Or, could it be the 19th floor, some buildings skip the 13th floor thinking no one would want to have an office on that floor as it might be bad luck. I guess we will just start climbing and look for the one labeled T.
We climb the stairs for what seems forever and do see a floor labeled M and per the decoder ring, M equals 13. You would think that a building for Cryptozoology would be more superstitious. Anyways, we are more than halfway to floor T.
Just as we continue on our journey upwards, the building shakes for about 30 seconds and the lights go out. Good thing we kept the PFL as the gentle purple and yellow glow illuminates the stairwell.
“Nancy, what do you think 5.1 or 5.2?”
“No more than a 5.1, but it was a pretty good one. Good thing we are in the stairwell as it i one of the safest places in a building during an earthquake. We just had an earthquake drill at school last week.”
“I wonder, is it safe to keep going up to T or should we stay here or go back to the ground floor?”
“Dad, I think we are ok to keep going up, the shaking has stopped, but it doesn’t look like the walls are cracked or anything.”
We venture on in the near dark and make it without further event to floor T.