What happens when.......

What happens when a vacuum cleaner cord gets caught in the elevator door?

Answer: Not pretty picture and unfortunately I don't have any to show.

Today I was being tidy and decided to vacuum the floor in my room. The dust bunnies were taking over the place. I went to the main dorm complex office deep in the basement of the building. I banged on the door and a very gruff man appeared. I made voom voom noises and pretended I was using a vacuum cleaner. I am getting good at making noises and "showing by doing". He understood and opened a storage unit and got out a very new vacuum cleaner---and even plugged it in to make sure it was working.

I took it back up the elevator and used it in my room. I decided to return it quickly so I wouldn't have to deal with a vacuum in my room. This is when the problems began. I walked back down the hall and into the elevator. As the door was closing I turned and noticed that the damn plug and cord were caught in the door. The cord is one of those that if you pull it --it retracts back into the machine. I thought it was totally retracted when I left my room. Wrong!

I yanked on the plug but it wouldn't come free from the door. I pushed the OPEN button to get the doors to open. Nope--that didn't work. So as the elevator plunged 10 floors to the basement the cord was going zingggggg as it was unwinding. I was hoping that the cord was EXTRA long and would last for 10 floors.....and it almost did. As I passed the second floor and was heading for the first floor the vacuum suddenly headed to the ceiling because it was out of cord. BLAM.... the cord broke and the vacuum smashed back to the floor. Whoops!

So....when I got to B1 (Basement-first level) the doors opened and of course the cord was no where to be seen. I looked at the vacuum and was amazed that it survived--well kind of survived because it was now cordless. So what to do? If I was in the US I would have apologized to the man and offered to pay for the repair. But how in the heck does one explain using hand and body motions in addition to sounds to explain what happened. I looked for the man but he was not around. I left the vacuum at his door and went looking for the cord. I hit the 9 button on the elevator and up I went. The door opened and there was the cord! I pulled it in and went downstairs to give it to the man. The vacuum was gone, the office was locked and no one was around. I wrapped the vacuum cord around the door and left.

Now I wait to see if he appears in a flurry of angry words. Normally I would think that they couldn't find me in this huge complex...but not true in this case because I think I am the only "old" Westerner here. If he shows, I will give him some money....and hopefully that will help.

Sigh, just another day of life in Korea!