Rick's wild ride

My travel as a passenger during my father’s business trips were few and far between but when I did become his travel companion, I was his first mate on a magical mystery tour even if the 3 day voyage never veered from the Chicago O’Hare airport and the O’Hare Hyatt. It wasn’t about the destination. It was about the airplane, the shuttle to the hotel, the elevator ride and the adventure that would surely happen. Adventures like the time we entered the elevator during one of those journeys just as a convention was convening. We were the last ones in the elevator and the elevator doors closed behind us. I realized the sardine can we just squeezed into was so filled with name tagged conventioneers that we couldn’t even turn around and face the doors as everyone should do in those situations. With everyone looking our way my 10 years old brain suddenly remembered that my dad is claustrophobic and this journey to the lobby might not end well. He was looking from side to side, the panic was starting to rise and rise as the elevator began its decent. He snatched a quick glance my way and when he did, he noticed the name tag of the man standing directly in front of him. I thought, “oh good, he must know him” but he then began staring at the man’s name tag. I looked also to see if he was just trying to distract himself of maybe it was someone famous, a celebrity right here in front of us, you could say rubbing up against us. His name was Bob but his last name was too long for me to understand, or possibly anyone without prior knowledge of his lineage. That is when I saw my father’s lips move. Nothing came out, luckily I thought, but he seemed to be trying to sound out the man’s last name. Suddenly, breaking the silence, the kind of silence that only exists in an elevator filled with people that do not know one another. The man looks up at my father and says in his outside voice ”Well…Can you pronounce it?”. That is when I saw the corner of my Dad’s mouth turn towards a grin. He said in his outside voice, which was much more practiced than the short man’s in front of him, and said” well I think so…………BOB”. My father’s panic had subsided, the elevator doors opened, and the whole of our traveling companions on the journey to the ground floor exited with us chuckling, laughing and yes even Bob was grinning.