Elevator Button Karma

The elevator binged and the doors slid open on our floor. "Come on, Pixie," I said to my two year old and stepped off into the foyer. I looked back and Pixie's small hand stretched out towards me from the back of the elevator. The doors were sliding closed. Then she was gone.

Panic. I pressed my mouth to the crack in the doors, "Pixie! Can you hear me!" I heard what sounded like her small voice and the rumble of the elevator as it continued to the next floor. A quick scan of the lobby offered no nearby stairwells. There were 8 floors at the hotel we stayed at this weekend, each one a maze of unnavigable halls. I had no idea where the elevator would stop and knew Pixie would relish this unexpected freedom. She'd get off for sure.

I jammed the elevator buttons, both Up and Down and pressed my ear to the doors. There was the elevator again coming closer. Closer. Farther! It had passed my floor. I jammed the buttons again and yelled with frustration.

My mind raced with possibilities. The elevator doors would open on a random floor and Pixie would get out. She would wander the halls, picking through the dirty dishes left outside the rooms, scavenging for rolls. She'd find a service cart and hop underneath the tablecloth. Holding back giggles, she'd be wheeled down to the kitchen by an unsuspecting maid. Once in the kitchen, she'd undoubtedly find all kinds of creative uses for the broilers, fryers, steak knives and ovens (all of which involve her painful yet embarrassing dismemberment.)

But here was the elevator coming again! "Pixie!" I yelled. It didn't stop. I stared with amazement at the lit call buttons next to the elevator. Was this some terrible joke? Had my floor disappeared into some Halloween vortex of Hell where nobody could ever exit on my level again? Was this my cosmic payback for all the times I joked to my husband about not picking up Pixie from the babysitters? I tried to think of what she was wearing so I could describe her to the police.

Pigtails. She wore only a soggy swim diaper, a stained blue t-shirt and brown Sketchers sandals. She was carrying a purple sponge shaped like a "P." We had just come from the pool so the dogs should probably follow a chlorine trail. She often walks backward so that might throw them off...are dogs trained to track toddlers? I can't even track her when I'm looking straight at her. Why didn't I inject one of those high-tech GPS chips in her bum? Or at least get my cell phone number tattooed on her forehead. What kind of mother am I?

Time was impossible to gauge, but it seemed like it had been almost five minutes before I heard noise inside the shaft again. I looked at the elevator buttons but resisted the urge to punch them. Bing! It was stopping on my floor. The doors opened and I saw a group of six women, smiling grandly at me. In the middle of this maternal circle was Pixie, pointing a finger and me and grinning. Apparently Pixie had run into a woman entering the elevator on the bottom level. She had secured my daughter and they rode the elevator until they found me, picking up a supportive group of women on their travels up and down the shaft who joined in the fun. By the time the car finally stopped at my floor, Pixie had chatted them all up and they were bosom buddies.

Is it too blasphemous to compare this to the time Mary and Joseph accidentally left young Jesus behind in Jerusalem after Passover? After an entire day of traveling back home, they realized he was gone and (I'm conjecturing here) freaked out. They rushed back to the city and three days later found him teaching the elders at the temple. "Son, why have you treated us like this?" asked his mother when she found him. But to Jesus, their worry for him was secondary to the good work he was doing for others.

Pixie is shaping up to be quite an ambassador herself. For the rest of our stay at the hotel this weekend, Pixie kept running into these different women and stopping to chat. While it was a fast way to make friends, I'm with Mary on this one. The Greater Good can wait, at least until I buy that kid a leash!