I'd say involuntary workout, but it wasn't like someone forced me to do it. Rebecca, Tucky and I just moved into a new apartment close to UNC where she (Rebecca, not Tucky) is a "foreign exchange" student. We live on the 6th floor with a nice balcony. It came furnished, including a large (60"?) TV that has what looks like a large green moon taking up approximately 30% of the screen (guessing some party got out of hand) and is generally dim, since it's old. Also a bed that is supposedly a queen but what I now refer to as an African Queen, which is basically the opposite of a California King. Our feet hang off the bottom and we bumped into each other all night, barely sleeping. But this story is not about that.
Yesterday Rebecca flew to California to see friends and family in what is probably (/hopefully) the limited time remaining when we aren't employed. I got in my chair and took Tucky out for a walk this morning. We got in the elevator and I pushed "1." But the elevator was not in the mood to be ordered around, or rather up and down, and let me out at the basement. Tucky and I were fine with that as we wanted to explore, anyway. So we went out the back door and wandered around a bit. After Tucky did her business, we went back inside and took the disgruntled elevator back up. At our desired 6th floor, the elevator laughed at us and took us straight back down to the basement. Not one to give up easily (nor Tucky), I repressed "6" and refused to get out. The elevator took us back up to 6, hesitated briefly, then laughed and said, "Yeah right, sucka!" and took us back down to the basement. At this point we decided to part ways with the hellevator, which had added violent shakes to its erratic behavior. We departed and waited until it headed back up to the 6th floor (we could only assume, however it may have very well known that we had left), then pressed the "up" button, hoping the other elevator would treat us better. Unfortunately, the hellevator had apparently knocked its more innocent brother into a coma, leaving it incapacitated on the first floor. Instead of the other elevator, the hellevator came back down, opened, and laughed its evil laugh. Tucky looked at me, clearly as frustrated as I was.
We went back outside and up the hill of the parking lot and made our way around and up to the first floor to talk with the office management, passing the poor, comatose elevator on the way, it's mouth frozen open. In the office, they told me the repairmen were told to come out ASAP since there were no working elevators. I felt sorry for them since they clearly hadn't had to deal with a guy in a wheelchair and his dog while elevators were out before. When I said I couldn't really get upstairs to my apartment, Dallas said, "Yeah... ummm... hmmmm...." in a kind of genuinely helpless way. It was decided that Dallas (they have names like that in North Carolina) would walk Tucky back upstairs, get my brace and crutches so I could walk up the stairs, and bring the chair up when the elevators were working again. I broke the news to him that if they weren't working in the next few hours, he was going to need to bring the chair up 6 flights of stairs. "No problem." Dallas is a good guy.
The 6 flights of stairs and I guess also the hill to get to the 1st floor were my not entirely voluntary workout. I could have just sat downstairs or gone to a coffee shop I guess, so it wasn't a forced workout, which would have made it involuntary. I should add that I feel grateful that I was able to walk up the stairs. Some of my friends could not have done that and would have had to go hang out at the coffee shop. For this reason I now recommend not taking your wheelchair into an elevator wearing pajamas.
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