EXPRESS ELEVATOR


I was born lazy. Procrastination and mediocrity describe my 
disposition in life very well.

So you will no doubt understand why I was so vigerously opposed 
to the task that layed before me. That is, this Star Wars 
arcade machine was sitting up on the 10th floor when it should 
have been down here in the back of my pickup. No working 
elevator in site -- nothing but a seemingly-endless descent of 
SPIRAL stairs.. a truly horrific task, to say the least. 

And so I devised an ingenious plan, called "express elevator".

First, I climbed up to the 12th floor balcony (which happens to 
be the top floor of this building) and attached a rather large 
pulley. This pulley was of the construction-grade, and able to 
handle very heavy loads. 

Second, I fished a very high-quality, thick rope through the 
pulley and dropped one end to the 10th floor, and the other 
down to the parking lot. 

Next, I went back down to the parking lot and pulled my truck 
precisely where the rope had touched ground. 

Now back up on the 10th floor, I fashioned a "relief-mechanism" 
by attaching another rope around the top of the machine, 
through another pulley attached to the far wall, and (again) 
down 10 stories and into the bed of my pickup. 

Lastly, I pushed the machine (kind of heavy.. oh well..) right 
up to the edge of the balcony, and then (once again) ran 
downstairs to the truck and examined what I had created.

The procedure was rather quite simple:

I would heave the game until it "teetered" on the edge, and 
then use the "relief-mechanism" to EVER-SO-SLOWLY move it out 
into the air, and carefully (with utter control) lower the 
machine to its ultimate resting place: the bed of my truck. 
Won't even need to load it up -- it'll already be there, 
compliments of my ingenious mind.

And it ALMOST worked.. AT FIRST.

It teetered just as expected. But what happened next was 
actually rather shocking, to say the least.

You see, I believe I forgot a couple of basic laws of physics, 
as you will see in the next paragraph.

The machine suddenly 'popped' out into the air with quite a 
swing, and (losing my presence of mind) I was immediatly thrust 
upward at an alarming rate. By this time, it was too late to 
LET GO OF THE ROPE, as I was already passing the 3rd floor, and 
I could see alot of people watching what I was doing. But the 
next sight is what bothered me more than anything.

Somewhere right around the 5th floor, the bottom of the machine 
met with the top of my head and right shoulder. 

The machine did not give. Luckily, it only partially impacted 
my person because of its 'swing' when it left the 10th floor, 
and so I only suffered a couple of lacerations, minor 
concussion, and (of course) a broken collarbone. My left hand 
was not affected, however, and I still tightly held the rope.

But this was only a small part of my ride. 

Unabashed, the machine continued its descent, and so my puny 
crippled body continued upward (again, at an alarming rate).

It was not until my left hand was buried 3 knuckles deep into 
the pully mechanism that I heard a terrible crash. And I knew 
what it was.

The seering pain of my left hand and right shoulder did not 
keep my eyes from seeing the mess below. My brand-new truck was 
probably totaled, as it seemed to lay sideways - atleast, most 
of it did. 

But the next event was even more startling. Apparently the 
machine broke in half, or into smaller parts, because it 
suddenly became much, much lighter. 

And so (again) I was taking a wild ride, but this time downward 
(at an alarming rate (again)).

But there was *definetly* something left attached to that rope, 
as it impacted (somewhere around the 5th floor) with my right 
leg, explaining the broken femur and multiple lacerations. 

Darth Vader's portrait on the side of the cabinet and the 
partially-intact monitor verified to me that it was the bottom 
half that broke off.. or maybe it was the bottom 
three-quarters.. 

This realization was quickly lost, however, in the vicinity of 
GROUND-ZERO, where I came to my abrupt and final resting place. 
(thank goodness!)

Laying there bleeding, still holding tightly onto the rope, and 
sprawled across a pile of shattered particleboard in the bed of 
a totaled pickup truck, I was looking up at the rest of the 
cabinet, 10 floors up, dangling ominously above my person. 

I then did something rather suprising. I lost my 
presence-of-mind. 


I LET GO OF THE ROPE


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This is (of course) fiction, and the story-line is NOT an 
original creation by me. I first saw a story following these 
lines years ago when I operated a BBS. It was called (you 
guessed it) "Presence of Mind", and it is basically a 
discription of the usual antics found in older cartoons, 
especially the Looney-Tunes featuring Wile E. Coyote.

Although I borrowed (or stole, however you want to look at it) 
the skeleton, the meat of the story and the game-twist is mine. 
The original text (by an unknown author) discribed a load of 
bricks and no truck below.

I thought this tale would be fun for fellow readers here in 
RGVAC. 

DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME !!


Kevin