A few years ago, I coined the term ‘Dr. Peppered‘ for when something I fully anticipated to happen had an unexpected, almost random result. For example, if I order a chicken burrito and get a fish taco instead, I’ve been Dr. Peppered. The term came about when I tried to buy water from a vending machine, and out came… a Dr. Pepper. Inattentive waiters, airlines, and motorcycle shops have all taken their turn Dr. Peppering me.

Until yesterday, I had never been Dr. Peppered by an elevator.

I checked into the Cincinnati Hyatt as usual, received my key card entitling me to one night’s sleep in a heavenly bed on the nineteenth floor, pressed the ‘Up’ button and waited for a car to deliver me to my palatial suite. The elevator soon ‘Bonged‘, doors opened, and I got in.

I pressed the button labeled 19 and away we went. This Hyatt was super fancy, their elevators talked! For some reason, my elevator stopped on the fifth floor, the elevator seductively purring, “Fifth floor. Going… Uuuuup.” Nobody was on the fifth floor waiting to go Uuuup, so after a few seconds, the doors closed and we ascended some more, the red floor numbers ticking up, up, up, until we arrived at the nineteenth floor.

“Hey Frenchy, this is the nineteenth floor, and may I add you’re looking miiiiighty handsome today!” Though it probably should have, the elevator did not actually say this – but that’s not how I got Dr. Peppered. When I stepped out, I was on the twenty-first floor! The elevator had gotten lost!

I pressed the down button, and that same possessed elevator returned, as if waiting to torture me some more. I’m pretty sure I heard the sexy voiced elevator lady laughing as I got in. Unsure where we’d end up this time, I pressed nineteen again. “Nineteenth floor. Going… Down.” Well, I suppose seventeen is technically close to nineteen, but close only counts in horse shoes and hand grenades, not elevatoring with a huge suitcase. I took a different elevator from seventeen, and amazingly enough, on the first try I arrived at the correct floor.

My friend Abi and I met later for dinner and drinks. After a meal and many, many frothy pints of Guinness, we called it a night. Waiting in the Hyatt lobby for the elevators, I explained to Abi how I’d been Dr. Peppered earlier by the mischievous elevator. While I was telling him the story, the very same Twilight Zone elevator door opened with a ‘Bong.’

The elevator cackled, “You again, Frenchy? Some people never learn. Ah ha ha ha!”

I hit 19 again, and Abi pressed 22.

“Nineteenth floor. Going… Uuuuup!” The door opened to reveal –surprise– the twentieth floor! I’d had enough Dr. Peppering for one day, and, defeated, I took the stairs.

Author: frenchy