The lift

One night, a while ago, we arrived home to find that the lift wouldn't budge from the 12th floor - we kept hitting the button, but the lift was not going anywhere.

So we had to climb the 12 flights of stairs (we paused at floor number 6, tempted to break our journey at Matt and James' apartment, but then we soldiered on and made it to the top)....

When we got to the top, Andrew inspected the lift....

Being the dutiful citizen that he is, and not wanting anyone else to have to walk up 12 flights (like our elderly neighbour who incidentally has a very cute little dog), he approached the lift to use his impressive handy man skills on it :)

By this time though, someone had got in on the floor above, and so because Andrew had pressed the button, the doors opened at our floor. The guy in the lift was quite surprised when Andrew didn't get in, and because of the language barrier, Andrew couldn't explain why he was loitering outside the lift - I heard him say "doors broken", but clearly the guy in the lift was a bit mystified - he kept signalling for Andrew to get in and Andrew would just stand there and say "no thanks"!!!

So, after the guy accepted that Andrew was just standing there for no good reason, the doors started to close - but then they sprang open again, because they weren't aligned correctly (although lift man probably thought Andrew had pressed the button again!!!)

After once again ascertaining that no, Andrew did not want to get in, the doors started closing again - this time Andrew lunged forward and punched the doors back into place...this must have been quite a frightening experience for the guy in the lift, who would've seen Andrew approaching as the doors were closing, and then heard him punch the doors violently!!!

Poor guy....he probably got home that night and warned his family to be careful of the crazy Westerner on the 12th floor!!!

Oh well, it gave me a laugh anyway. And we haven't had a problem with the lift since.

written by  arterra on October 26, 2007 from Dongguan, China
from the travel blog: China Adventure
Send a Compliment

comment on this...