So there I was, in my house slippers, going down to pick up the mail. How ordinary can it get ? The elevator already contained a food delivery lad, so masked and protected from the elements that there was practically no skin visible. He is about 5ft 5ins .. seems to be the median height for food delivery guys around here. Five floors down, we were joined by one of the building maintenance guys, my good mate Jason. He is 45-ish, fairly large, near skin-headed and covered in tattoos and loves to travel to the orient, with his drone, so we have had many conversations about such places and he usually reports back that he met some nice girl in a bar and she showed him the sights …. duh … sure.
So all is progressing well southwards, when the elevator jerks and stops. Nothing is happening. The digital readout says we are at floor 19, thus all I am thinking is there is a lot of airspace under my feet. Jason says just stay still, it will rectify himself, in his best “I am a building maintenance person” voice. So we stand. After about a minute, nothing has happened. Jason hits a couple of buttons. Still nothing is still happening. Fortunately these guys all have radios, so he is in touch with the front desk. He even gave a sort of ‘who is there resume’. “I am here with a food delivery guy and a resident”. I thought he could have used my name, as I am well known to all the staff here… but anyway. They assure him we are known about, which is kind of consoling and stops me trying to work out how many feet there are between floor 19 and the -5 level. I could never do mental arithmetic and frankly, am not much better with a calculator.
We stand. The fool delivery guy is calm, so I enter into conversation with him. Ali is from Bangladesh and has been here for two years and as far as he is concerned, it is the ONLY place to be. Good news. He is amazed that I can name three places in his homeland and even more gobsmacked that I have been there. He clearly think I am nuts. Jason gets involved, between various radio communications and thinks that Bangladesh is in India, which under the circumstances, is pretty close and I draw a little air map of north eastern India. Jason wants to go to Myanmar, as he knows there are great sights to see ….okay you folks ….just don’t go there.
The elevator jerks a bit more and then the doors open and we are about 18 inches misaligned with floor 19. Ali and are I are helped out. We take another elevator opposite and Ali went off to tell his tale, as did I.
timothyvalentinestravels 