Child #3 gets stuck in elevator

So, we're staying at a hotel in the OC for four days of water polo Junior Olympics. Child #3 is supposed to meet me and Child #4 in the lobby to leave for his 2nd game of the day. He doesn't show. Annoyed, I phone around to see if he's left with another family for the pool. Everyone, by now, is en route. No one has any idea where Child #3 is. I leave Child #4 in the lobby to watch for him, then race upstairs to see if he misunderstood and is at our room.

Nope.

Then....I'm standing outside our empty hotel room and...

I hear him spelling his name!

But I can't see him!

I sprint up and down the hall screaming out for him. While all these horrible thoughts crash around my mind. Like he's being held against his will in one of the rooms. And other thoughts of which parental nightmares are made.

Finally, I slow down enough to hear him say in a calm voice, "Mom, I'm stuck in the elevator."

I race over to the closed doors and, sure enough, I can hear him giving my cell phone number to someone.

Hotel management phones me, promising to have him out in 5 minutes.

Which doesn't happen. After THIRTY-FIVE minutes and several phone calls, Child #3 decides to try prying open the doors.

Which works!

Then he steps way up...and he's there, beside me.

We take the stairs down to the lobby to inform them of his escape.

I am very very impressed with Child #3. Did he panic while stuck all alone in an elevator for 35 minutes? No. Actually, he did his push-ups! And, according to the video tape, made a lot of silly faces. Child #3 is calm and cucumber-cool in a crisis. What an asset that will be in life.

This has not been a stellar hotel stay: a sink that doesn't drain; a phone that only works on speaker; and an elevator that swallows up 12 year old boys. Not staying at this Radisson again.

Here's a link to the New Yorker article on a guy trapped in an elevator for a weekend.