Monday, November 13, 2006

Phone Booth: A Memory...


Picture it: Elms College - December 1994. (If you have no idea what an "Elms College" is, join the rest of the population of the USA) I was in the dormitory - 2nd floor in some direction, north, west...upside down? I had no long distance on my telephone because - well, I wasn't responsible enough at 19 to have that.... I went into the "phone booth" (which was really a closet with very hot pipes & a pay phone inside it) and went inside, closed the door for some privacy and made my telephone call. I have absolutely no idea who I was calling at the time, maybe Tanya - who knows. A short while later I went to exit this "phone closet" and found that the door wouldn't open. I got a little nervous. I had no money to call anyone and once I called them, what on earth would I say? The only people's who's phone numbers I knew were people from home (2 hours away). Luckily I remembered that my mom had Jessica's phone number (the gal across the hall) so I called my mom collect and then proceeded to call Jessica collect. The first time she didn't accept the charges. The second time she didn't answer, the third time she finally did. "Uh Jess, Could you come out in the hall, get Tina and get me the hell out of this phone booth?" Then it started getting hot. I should mention here that Jessica was less than 30 feet from the phone booth. I didn't want to "Scream out" because it was 24 hour quiet hours and thought I would get in trouble again. The night before I had gotten into trouble because Jess and I were watching Jurassic park and some damn dinosaur popped up into the jeep and scared the shit out of me...I screamed. The night before THAT Jessica and I were watching Striking Distance and someone jumped out of a closet and I screamed at that. I thought if I had screamed again that Sange would kick me off the floor so...I just ended up calling Jess.


I don't really remember much after that. I must have sweat it out or something but I vaguely remember fire trucks and Tina thinking I was physically "stuck" in the phone booth, not stuck as in they couldn't open the door. I think it was a credit card or something slid up under the door jamb mechanism that got the door open. I have to say that that memory has stayed with me for about eons now. My bathroom door wouldn't open the other day and panic ensued. I looked and saw the hinges were on my side of the door so I was ok.

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