This morning one of the other clients in my building got stuck in the elevator. Though this is not proven, it is assumed that they were on their way downstairs to the common area. For those of you who don’t know, I live in supportive housing where there is a kitchen where meals are served while the option to eat in your room is always available as well. Now I’ve been here for four years and I’ve always chose the latter option, (which in this case is to eat upstairs.) I made this decision based on the fact that I’m introverted but that decision has been overruled many times by mom who has always tried to get me to be more social and spend less time in solitude. For as long as I’ve been here, an ongoing argument between mom and I has been over whether or not I should eat upstairs or not with her almost always winning every argument despite me not making anymore friends than I already have in the process. There have been just as many times during my stay here when the elevator has gone out, both while I was present and a few times while I was in the building. A handful of these occurrences have occurred when I was downstairs where I have made the conscious decision to risk my own safety without the help of staff to walk up the stairs on my own, (as they cannot help me up the stairs legally in these circumstances,) where I would otherwise have to wait until the elevator is fixed to get to my room on the second floor. One thing has remained constant in these occurrences though. At the end of every one of these situations or middle, (assuming the issue still exists at a time where I had chosen to walk up the stairs,) I will attempt to bring the reality of the situation to mom as it pertains to the real reason I hate going downstairs in the first place. I will say things such as “Mom this is why I don’t like going downstairs, you never know if I may get stuck in the elevator…” ETC. This does no good however and she sticks to her original opinion saying that I still go downstairs to go out. In response to this comment, I say that going forward, (presumably after the elevator has been fixed or even during the situation currently taking place,) I will only go down when I have to go somewhere. This is something that she argues against constantly though. If she does agree to it, it’s normally sarcastically and with accompanying anger if I don’t change my mind.

To be fair, while the elevator has broken many times, it’s never been with someone inside, at least as long as I’ve been here. I quietly have been waiting for something like this to happen. This may be a bad thing to say but it’s true. Assuming that the person in question isn’t me, I had been waiting for someone else to get stuck in the elevator to prove my point to mom once and for all about why I shouldn’t go downstairs. Well, this morning provided me that opportunity and I couldn’t wait to let mom know about the fact that somebody was stuck in there which likely would have finally proven my point to her. With this in mind, I called her multiple times before 10:00, (our normal time to call on weekends when she doesn’t work,) where she simply asked if I was the one stuck in there. After I responded that I wasn’t, she simply said to let it go at the point and just be happy that it wasn’t me that was stuck. I guess this makes sense.

As far as how I feel for the person who was trapped inside the elevator, I wish I could say I feel sorry for them but I don’t. While I don’t know exactly who the person is, (as staff cannot divulge this due to privacy reasons,) I have a pretty good idea of who it was and I’m just going to assume it was this person who got stuck as he tends to frequent the common area more than any other client. The fact is it’s not this person’s fault that they got stuck in the elevator. The fault lies solely with the fact that there needs to be a kitchen area and a common room in the first place. If everybody just ate in their rooms and never had to go down, maybe this wouldn’t happen. I mean, it makes sense if you think about it. You pay to live in your house so why should you be forced or have the option to eat anywhere else or spend any of your time when you’re not out doing things?