Trapped

I know that elevators are expeditious, but I am wary of them, nevertheless. When I was 11, I was stuck on an elevator with my mom for about 20 minutes. She was claustrophobic anyway - I'm not- so she was having cold sweats, and kept asking me if I was ok, which I was, but she certainly was not ok. When we were "rescued" - her word- She cried tears of relief.She had been overwhelmed with fear but was trying hard not to freak out because I was with her. I didn't think about that experience until years later in 1980 when I was on my honeymoon with Alfredo in Montreal.We saw the Brian DePalma movie, " Dressed to Kill " with Michael Caine playing a pyschopath who viciously murdered a hapless individual in an elevator. Well, later that night, I needed to go down to the hotel lobby to get some aspirin, because Al's ankle was swollen.I froze as I prepared to press the down button for the elevator. Our room was on the 23rd floor, so I needed to get on the darned thing and started to have an irrational panic attack. By the time I reached the lobby I was a sniveling wreck. I got the aspirin - and a tranquilizer for myself- and asked the security guard to ride with me back up to my floor. Silly me. I got over it, but I still don't like being on an elevator by myself; I feel too vulnerable and contained, and I have never watched that movie again.Fast forward to New Year 2000. We went to New Orleans to enjoy the millennium events, and were having a wonderful time with family and friends. We stayed in the French Quarter at a charming, historic hotel called the Dauphine Orleans,really lovely, and we splurged and had a suite on the top floor so our kids and we could have our own bedrooms.It was the "cat's meow." One morning during our stay there I told Al that I was going downstairs to look around. I got on the elevator and it got stuck between floors. The phone and alarm on the elevator weren't working, of course, - this was before cell phones- and I had to wait and wait and wait until somebody " rescued " me. My mom's word came to mind. Two and half hours later, the door was forced open and a workman helped me get pulled out. People who had tried to use the elevator found that it wasn't working and the management had put a sign on the doors saying "out of order", and they called the workman to come fix it. No one knew that I was trapped until that workman pryed the doors open. Let me tell you, I had cold sweats and heart palpitations, and I finally could empathize with what my mom had felt, so many years before. Additionally, I was livid. I heard myself screaming; I could not be consoled. Al was called,and he had been clueless, because it wasn't unusual when I would be "looking around" that I'd be out shopping or such.I guess I was in the manager's office about an hour, and after calming down, I asked/ told/ demanded that our stay be comped , and it was. They were kind with me(lawsuit concerns, perhaps),and why shouldn't they be? You know, I would stay at that lovely hotel again, but I would never get on their elevator again. Consequently, I understandably have a love/ hate relationship with elevators, although I'm not so wigged out that I won't use them, so I guess these mixed feelings haven't risen to the status of a phobia - yet.