FORTY-ONE hours?! That guy appeared entirely too calm...he's obviously an alien.

Amazing. I think he cleaned out his wallet at one point (around Hour #22), but other than that I have no idea how he amused himself.

Think of it as an opportunity to explore the deep recesses of your mind in order to gain the insight and self-awareness necessary to trust yourself to make it through such a situation.

Or you could start carrying your fuschia 'love tool' with you and, in such a situation as elevator malfunction, sort of let the hours just melt by.

You win, either way.

I would hope my indulgence in a bit of self-help as it were would not cause me to forget there's a camera on. Anyway I think one of the times he opened the door, he peed against the brick wall. A lady would have to hold it open with her butt to pull that off but it's possible.

Don't all elevators have some sort of ceiling hatch you can bust through? Have the movies taught us nothing?

pants: if he is, he's a lame alien. no ray gun? no teleportation skills? pfft.

rhea: i wondered what that was - kind of looked like he was playing cards.

sir: i thought we agreed never to discuss that again... or maybe i just agreed never to write about it again. :)

don: it looked like he kept trying to pop open the ceiling hatch, but i had the exact same thought. how many times have we seen bruce willis do that? like, a billion? i feel so betrayed.

Egad, can you imagine that situation with the neat new elevator system in your building? Whoa. That's it. I'm never coming to Chicago.

I soooooo thought you were going to tell us about how the crazy elevator system in your building "took a liking to you" and wouldn't let you leave.

"Elevator, I demand to be let OUT!!!"

"I'm sorry Jenny, I just can't do that"

The New Yorker article that ran with this video let us in on a few insights about elevators -- that hatch at the top? Can only be opened from the outside. Bruce was faking it. Also, the "door close" button we all love? Doesn't actually work on modern elevators. It's a placebo!

(And yes, he did open the doors to pee into the shaft. He also smoked his remaining three cigarettes.)

I am having fits of claustrophobia just thinking about it.

shari: i don't blame you. we just had a wild cougar on the loose in the city, too. if it's not the machines, it's the animals - they're all trying to kill us.

dustin: that's totally my nightmare!

jen: NO WAY! we've been bamboozled all these years! what's the point of it only opening from the outside?

jay: you and me both. now i've started to think that i might need to always bring food and water with me in the elevator. and make sure i've just gone to the bathroom...

Re: the hatch
Apparently, it's there for the rescue workers -- trained elevator peeps -- to save you. The article says the safest place to be during an elevator kerfuffle is inside the elevator. Of course, this being true would totally ruin the Die Hard movies, so perhaps we shouldn't spread it around.

the only thing that's horrifying about this is that OMG ELEVATORS HAVE HIDDEN CAMERAS??!?

i don't think i can ever show my face in 7 cities again...

I would have stared Blue Steel at the camera for 41 straight hours.

I've never been trapped in an elevator before, but being anywhere by yourself for 41 hours, let alone not having food, water or internet access, I would go nuts.

Now as brandon mentioned, there are things that I've done in elevators that I bet were caught on some sort of video.

I was trapped in an elevator for two hours once, three other people were with me. One of them was a very nervous woman who couldn't understand why we wouldn't let her light up. Granted, it wasn't my most enjoyable two hours but given that the building was only four stories high, I wasn't too worried about plunging to my death.

What killed me about this story is that security guards were on duty the whole.damn.time and they completely missed seeing him all weekend. Holy hell. Now that is frightening.