We had an unexpectedly exciting morning in church today. The service itself was uneventful. Then Harrison's Sunday school teacher came running over to our table to be sure he would be in class today, because he is the narrator of a play they are rehearsing. Julio wanted to go to the adult class, but I was just too tired to politely sit through the current offering, which is primarily a lecture format. It's a good class, but I was exhausted as a combination of late night/early morning and running all over Pella High School yesterday at the State Large Group Speech contest.
Now here's the strange part. Mom and Dad were heading home and offered me a ride, but I inexplicably decided to stay and hang out at church while my boys were in their classes. After everyone else parted ways, I started up the stairs to wait in the library, when the church custodian, Laurie, stopped me in the main entryway to chat.
While we were standing there, "Betty", an upper-range octogenarian, came tottering in and made a beeline to Laurie. With a cursory "sorry to interrupt, but..." she began a long rant about how she couldn't find a handicapped parking place (with a tone that made it clear she expected Laurie to fix the situation immediately).
Laurie and I tried reasoning with her using our crazy whippersnapper logic, including pointing to the two open handicapped spaces in the side lot (I don't LIKE to park on that side of the church!), letting her know that most of the lots clear out between 10:30 and 10:45, as people finish breakfast and the Sunday School classes get out, so that would be a good time to arrive for the 11am service (well, I can't take a chance of being late) and so on.
Finally, Betty turned from us in disgust and boarded the elevator, and we resumed our conversation. About 5 minutes later, Laurie shushed me in the way you do when you think you hear something, which she did. There was a faint tap-tap-tapping coming from the elevator. It turns out the elevator had malfunctioned with 88-year-old happy Betty locked inside.
Pastor Herb and our sound tech Rick tried to force the door open to no avail while Laurie called the fire department. Meanwhile, I hollered back and forth to Betty to keep her calm and let her know we were working to get her out.
30 minutes, 2 Fire/Rescue Vehicles and 6 Fire/Rescue-Men later, Betty was being carried up the stairs in a wheelchair, grinning and obviously luxuriating in the attention of all those strapping young men, and I had pulled Julio out of class to help our other elderly patrons maneuver the stairs so they could get to the service.
When Harrison got out of class, we took him to Mom & Dad's. After I regaled everyone with the tale of the morning's events, Harrison looked very somber and said "Maybe that was her punishment" for complaining about the church. You could almost see his brain quick-reviewing, hoping he hadn't done anything to bring such retribution down on himself (or perhaps, more realistically, he was worried about one of us adults doing so!).
Julio and I joined another couple back at church in time to help people back down the stairs after the late service, which also entailed explaining to people who had seen the emergency vehicles that nobody was hurt or ill and everything was fine.
Then Julio, Dad & Harrison went to the Woodcarvers Convention at the Longbranch while I took a nap on the couch with our lovely dog.
