Once upon a time, four people went into an elevator.  Just as the doors closed an earthquake began its tyrannical rumblings.  This monster destroyed the building and buried our elevator in the rubble.

 

Miraculously our four survive the fall.  They are even so lucky as to have the elevator standing up when it comes to rest, buried under the building.  The car had landed at a tiny angle and the doors had been pushed shut solid by a ton of brick and twisted steel beyond.  The only lucky break for them was that the water pipes servicing the drinking fountains in the main lobby had ruptured.  This flowing water was pooling on the elevator roof, where it slipped between the steel panels and ran down the inside of the car.

 

After they realize that they’ve not died and are able to calm down a bit, they begin to talk.  They wonder how long it will be before they get rescued, not knowing at all that the tiny car is buried under the building.  They wonder what the rescue will be like.  They wonder how bad it is other places.  They wonder how bad it is right here!  They talk and talk and talk, on and on about nothing, for hours it goes.

 

Finally one says, “I have to go to the bathroom”.

 

“Really?” replies another.

 

“Well, what should we do?” asks the third.

 

“Maybe we should vote on it!” says the first. 

 

So they did and the vote came back 3:1 in favor of using the corner near the front of the car as the place to use the bathroom.  The one vote opposing this was the woman, who thought that it would be better to use a corner near the back of the car, because she was worried that if found, it might look embarrassing if the first thing the rescuers found was a pile of stink. 

 

“When we have to, go number 2, what shall we use to wipe ourselves?” asked the first as he was urinating in the corner.

 

Again they voted that everyone would remove their underwear and tear it into strips to make toilet paper.  The vote was again: 3:1, the woman this time didn’t agree, because she was wearing a very expensive pair of silk panties that lacked any real fabric in the first place.

 

“Where do we sleep?” asked one.

 

“We’ll have to vote on it!”

 

And the again did.  The woman had to sleep nearest the bathroom, and she suspected it was because she’s disagreed with all the votes so far.

 

Three days passed and at every impasse they voted on what their next move should be.

 

“Gee, isn’t this swell, how well voting is working!” said one.

 

“Yeah, it was never like this in the real world!” cried another.

 

On the fifth day they began to realize that hope was fading away.  Still no sign of rescue.  Still no sign of any light of the outside world.  And they were hungry, oh so hungry, that it was beginning to consume them; this need for nourishment.

 

“What shall we eat?” asked the first.

 

“One of us?” asked the second, though his question lacked the luster of a question, hiding more of a statement.

 

“Well have to vote on that,” said the third.

 

And they did: 3:1.

 

 

 

That night they ate well.