Elevators

• Lori Palminteri
• Uncategorized
• August 7, 2026

Patience must be practiced perpetually to master it as a virtue, or perhaps in most people’s case, to simply tolerate. Patience is not a quality runs in the Palminteri family. Few things test mine more than slow or faulty elevators. It’s not simply the waiting that drives me mad, it’s the anxiety of if I step on that elevator and the doors cease to open for hours, trapped in a windowless box that could plummet to the first circle of Hell.

In fact, I used to be terrified of elevators, to the point where I would always choose the stairs option even if the floor I needed to go was 20 feet up. Back in the times I worked in the nursing home, the elevators were terribly slow, and I usually had no choice but to take them because I worked in dietary and would be pushing around carts of food. In those same years (college), I got an internship at Comedy Central in Manhattan and headquarters was in a high-rise. This was when I truly overcame my fear, because I didn’t want anyone at Comedy Central (who I was trying to impress) know that I was riddled with tremendous anxiety and riding an elevator made me want to cry. How could I become a NYC writer if I was deathly afraid of elevators?

One of my worst elevator experiences, which wasn’t even that bad, was in Puerto Rico. I was traveling with my best friend Lauren’s family, the LaPinta’s, to stay with her Abuela on the beautiful island of PR, which I was lucky to do many times (the LaPinta’s are famously the nicest family on the planet). We were visiting one of Lauren’s cousins (in a very typical Puerto Rican fashion, she had no less than one thousand cousins, slightly more than the amount of Italian and Irish cousins I had) who happened to live in a high rise. I truly love Puerto Rico, but what you have to understand about the island and the people is that even though they are a commonwealth of the United States, it is more a less a second world country when it comes to amenities like, say, electricity and anything at all run efficiently. Before anyone one gets all butt hurt about that truth, I’m not knocking the Puerto Ricans for it. Almost every Puerto Rican I talked to in my life had no interest in becoming a state, they perpetually voted it down, because they do not want to pay the taxes and they are content with a slower, less productive life at the cost of shitty roads, rolling blackouts, and subpar hospitals. The American mindset would call the average Puerto Rican lazy, but I can attest that Puerto Ricans are happier than Americans, or at least New Yorkers. I cast no judgement either way, I’m simply stating what is.

So, I’m with the LaPinta family— there’s five of them, plus me and their other cousin. There are four or five strangers in the elevator with us when the elevator stops. The lights go out and the AC. We were probably only stopped for seven or eight minutes, but it felt like an eternity to me. Every second that went by, it seemed to get hotter, suddenly I had to go to the bathroom real bad and I felt dizzy like I was going to throw up and pass out simultaneously. As soon as the elevator moved and the AC returned, all of these symptoms disappeared as quickly as they came on. But I had to live with the dread of going back down on the elevator, which ruined the visit for me, I cannot remember anything else from that day besides the elevator.

Present day Lori hardly has these fears anymore. Living in Queens for thirteen years and having various jobs in skyscrapers, those fears are largely past Lori’s problems, unless (UNLESS) there seems to be elevator issues and they I quickly digress into a fearful child. Truthfully, I think I’m more afraid of being trapped in an elevator for hours than plummeting to my death (at least that would be over fast? Ironically, “The Tower of Terror” was one of my favorite rides as a kid, so my phobia is more of a claustrophobic one than anything else).

While at the Tropicana in Atlantic City for five shows, myself and the other comic wait for the elevator with our teeth grinding, as only half the elevators are operating and it’s slow. Additionally, when the doors open, they close as quickly as the guillotine would cut off a traitors neck in France when they were into that sort of thing (and they were really into that). As passengers exit the elevator, they warn us, “good luck with the elevator.” That’s never a good sign.

The elevator crawls up to the 49th floor. It’s a first world kind of torture, but the spoils of modern life has made us all this way. My room happens to be right next to the elevator, and given how slow it is, it means throughout the night, people are talking and complaining (about the elevator) right outside my door. At one point, there was even a baby crying, and it always bothers me when people bring babies to casinos… it’s bad parenting.

Our first show was lightly attended (it’s a new club), and usually post show I’d be walking around with a drink in my hand people watching, but I was fighting off a sinus infection that was starting to bleed into my lungs into a cough. No good deed goes unpunished as I ended up getting sick after helping my friend rip up moldy floors from a newly acquired Fire Island property. The only upside of being sick in a place like Atlantic City is it means I’ll save the money I’m making from spending it on booze and the rare moment of gambling. Instead, I’m in my room sipping tea, snorting Flonase, and watching TV programs about sharks or wars.

For years now I’ve been coming to Atlantic City for gigs. Usually, I enjoy the gigs, even if they don’t go great because I do genuinely love being a working comedian and it’s sweetened when you’re working with comics who are your friends. But there is a certain sadness, even darkness that looms. The hotels are falling apart. Restaurants are boarded up. There are drug addicts on every corner. Neon lights that are half working buzz with a false promise of winning big.

In a way, it’s the perfect reflection of show business— a lonely world where so few “make it,” and the rest grovel for the scraps of some form of glory, or brief opportunity to exercise the creative juices that give your life some sort of meaning. The romance of it stripped to its bear reality. And still, it feels better than sitting in a cubicle mindlessly punching in data, which is a better paying job that is also threatened by modern day technology. “Enjoy it while it lasts,” a little voice tells me. Because nothing ever lasts. Sure enough, like a sandcastle by the ocean. It is all over in time. And it’s always better to have been to the beach, then to have never gone at all.