The time were I bonded with the floor of the elevator at the COB

I go to the Church Office Building usually once a week – on Thursdays. I enjoy being downtown one day a week, and I especially love lunch at the Blue Lemon (if you haven’t been there – go! But it has to be the one downtown, I tried the one in Lehi once and it wasn’t as good. Their sugar cookies are so good!).

This week, we had training at the COB starting at 8am. Which means I was to be there at 7:45 to make sure the room was set up, the food had arrived, and to get the instructor from the lobby and take him to the room.

At 7:45am on Monday I got a call from my boss  wondering where I was? Guess who had forgotten and hadn’t left the house yet?  UH OH.

I officially entered panic mode, threw on clothes, didn’t put any make on, didn’t do my hair (ok – let’s be honest – I rarely do that stuff anyways). I was in mega-stressed out mode.

I drove as quickly as I could downtown, parked, and made my way from the Conference Center parking garage to the COB.

I ran to the elevators and pushed the up button. The doors immediately opened. People were coming up behind me.

Unfortunately for me, as I’d run to the elevators and pushed the up button, my shoes began to slide. They twisted and turned, and coupled with my heavy geeky laptop backpack (they call them field backpacks – since we in the IT dept have to cart our laptops everywhere we go it seems like) I didn’t stand a chance. As the doors opened, I pummeled inside, landing on my hands and knees, ending basically flat on my face in the COB elevator shaft. The whole elevator bounced with the unexpected fall.

Luckily for me – the doors in the COB open and close incredibly fast. The people coming behind me absolutely saw, but the doors mercifully closed before they could join me in the elevator. I can only imagine their looks as they watched me slide around, try to regain my balance, watched my backpack swinging from side to side, pulling me with its weight, and then finally go flying into the elevator, landing on my face – all in a skirt. Then the doors closed. I can just imagine their faces, their comments to each other…

I just sat on the floor of the elevator laughing for a while. But seriously – it hurt. It really hurt!!! I have one major scrape on one knee, one minor scrape on the other.

The door opened on the 27^th floor, and I hobbled out of the elevators and down the hall. Did I mention it REALLY hurt? All the while laughing… how could you not laugh after that?

I was half an hour late to this meeting. I walked in the room, and all 30 of the attendees had made it on time, and the training was in full process. To make matters worse – the tables were arranged in a giant U shape – and the only seat left was on the opposite side from me. So I had to walk around the entire room, squeezing between the wall and the chairs. Did I mention that of the 30 attendees all were men? It was embarrassing – making a huge spectacle of myself, walking in late, finding a seat, all with bloody damaged knees.

I basically laughed the entire meeting; I couldn’t get over my disaster. And my knees were killing the whole time. During our first break, I told a couple of my co-workers I’m particularly close to. They died laughing.

One of them came up to me at the end of the training, put his arm around me and said,

“You know, I’d be delighted if any of my sons brought home a girl like you with red knees. It means she spends lots of time on her knees praying.” HAHA. I wish that were the real reason!

Another came up to me this morning, looked at me and laughed. I knew what he was laughing about. He just had to re-live the moment. Then he added to my humiliation:

“You realize they have cameras all over the COB lobby, right? In the elevators? You know the security guys watched you slip and fall into the elevator, right? That they all died laughing, and showed it to everyone on staff. In fact, it’s probably on YouTube now.”

It’s not. I checked.

Love,

Brittney

Tim