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Last night I became spiderman…kind off…for just a short while anyway…

As I was leaving work last night, my son decided he wanted to go down the lift. I had him on my shoulders and he thought it would be fun - he could reach to press the down button while on my shoulders - very exciting when you’re almost five.

Unfortunately for us the lift died after we had made only a short 3 foot trip, I was able to open the first set of doors through some brute force but unfortunately not the second set (the ones that are attached to the building). I also managed keep my son calm as he certainly was quite scared - this was my first amazing feat for the night.

Thankfully I was able to get a tech on the phone who told me that if I could reach, I could open one of the doors by tripping a switch about 3/4 of the way up. Now this is were I became a super hero (in my son’s eyes anyway) and preformed my second amazing feat. By pushing my back against one wall of the door frame (the inside lift door) I was able to use my legs on the opposing frame to walk up the inside of the frame, but unfortunately my arm just wouldn’t reach the switch. While I was doing this I had a fairly enthusiastic cheer squad below me - he was jumping up and down on the spot clapping his hands and cheering “you can do it daddy, you can do it”. This made me determined to get the damn thing open, the other motivator was the expected 45 - 60 min wait for the tech to get there.

As I was luckily enough to have my wife outside the door, she was able to get back into work and get me a wooden coat hanger and with me prying open the door as much as possible pass me it to me. Now up I went again. I think it was then that I had the image of spiderman shimmying up a wall, just a fat older spiderman, who happens to resemble a walrus with legs trying to wiggle up a wall, as a opposed to an athletic super hero. I can see it now - Is it a bird, is it a plane, no its - walrus man - able to climb tall buildings in very very very slow crawls… Anyway by whacking the hell of the switch with the coat hanger I was able to trip the switch and one side of the door opened. I was was easily able to get the lad out. To get myself out I donned my Lycra again (every super hero needs lycra or spandex or both) and shimmied up the frame and in a very undignified manner squeeze myself out the door - butt first!  - again think of a walrus wiggling out of a door - It was then as I lay on the ground that I realised that my right knee was killing me and today is swollen quite badly. I don’t feel like it is injured badly but only time will tell.

Although in retrospect I’m sure I didn’t look much like a super hero (ok I know I didn’t look like a super hero : d) , to my son I was a super hero that night for getting us out of that lift. Even though I injured myself in the process I am still impressed that I was able to shimmy my fat ass up the inside of a lift door frame, hold myself there and bash the crap out of that switch - I sure did feel quite proud of myself that night. And I have to admit to going to bed dreaming super hero dreams (yes including the spandex and lycra).