The Elevator Fiasco

A couple of guys from China called us home for dinner one evening. So off we went, across the river, to a place called Deutz. Li was going to meet us at the station, since we did not know their house. We followed the Indian Standard time and reached a respectable 10 mintues late, but Li outwit us and reached a further 15 minutes later.

When we reached the apartment building, Xing came down to let us in. We trooped into the elevator and were joined by a German speaking Moroccan student as well. Note that the fact that she knew German would assume significance later.

When the seven of us are inside, and the doors are shut, the elevator suddenly decides that it does not want to 'elevate' us to the seventh floor and stops functioning. Moreover, it refuses to open the door to let us out so that we could trudge up seven floors or use an alternate elevator. For ten minutes, we try pressing all the buttons but to no avail. Our cell phones did not work either.

Then, one of us has a brainwave and presses the alarm. Someone outside says hi on hearing the alarm. We say hello to him and he wishes us a good evening and walks off :(. Fortunately, the apartment manager came and tried resetting the elevator and doing some adjustments but that failed as well. This is where the German speaking ability of the girl was useful because, the scene would have been so comical if we, in our broken German, and they, in broken english had tried to converse! So he had no option than to call the technician, who on a saturday evening we assumed, would already be downing his fourth or fifth beer. Note that we had already spent close to a half hour in captivity.

Xing meanwhile realises that he had left rice on the gas to boil. After 30 minutes, he realises this! He calls out to the helpful friend outside and gives him his apartment number and asks him to tell the roomies to switch off the gas. This guy goes up and comes back in ten minutes only to tell us that he couldn't find his apartment. Another five minutes and the fire alarm triggers. We thought that someone had activated this to rescue us. But no! This was because our man Xing had left the rice on. Within two minutes, the elevator doors opened and we were staring at firemen asking us to get out of the building as they had to evacuate it. Five fire trucks in a matter of minutes, an ambulance and a police car. That is what is German efficiency !! Sadly, it doesn't apply to elevators I say !