Delivery Man Update

The Post now reports (“Elevator Moo Goo Guy Ran” — I know, not at all funny) that the delivery guy who was trapped in the elevator for three days has gone into hiding, fearful of being deported (which was probably why it took him so long to pull the alarm, now that I think about it):

The Chinese food deliveryman who was trapped for 3 1/2 days in an elevator went into hiding yesterday — fearing his newfound fame may get him in hot-and-sour soup with immigration officials.

“He left the city,” one of Ming Kuang Chen’s roommates said through an interpreter. “He’s an illegal immigrant and he’s afraid people will catch him.”

After his ordeal — which set off an intensive police manhunt — Chen’s co-workers at the Happy Dragon restaurant in The Bronx said they didn’t know if he would return to work.

“He’s recovering. We don’t know if he’s coming back. We haven’t spoken to him,” said a woman working the counter.

Might get him in “hot and sour soup?” Like “hot water,” but soup? Because it’s something you order from a Chinese restaurant? Between the silly headline and the clumsy turn-of-phrase, I’m not at all happy. Not at all!

The Making of an Urban Legend

A Drudgetastic story that will be repeated around the watercooler all across the country — the delivery guy who was stuck in the elevator for three days:

Ming Kuang Chen, a deliveryman for a Bronx restaurant called Happy Dragon, walked out Friday night at about 8:30 p.m. with a large order of curried shrimp with onion and a small shrimp fried rice, and never came back.

Worried co-workers found his bicycle chained up in front of the 38-story apartment building of Tracey Towers, at 40 West Mosholu Parkway near Jerome Avenue, and feared the worst: At least three deliverymen for Chinese restaurants have been killed in New York City in the last five years, for money or for food.

For three days, the police searched in and around the buildings for Mr. Chen, going door to door to the 871 apartments, sending bloodhounds and cadaver-detecting dogs into nearby Van Cortlandt Park and Woodlawn Cemetery, dropping with scuba gear into the cold waters of the Jerome Park Reservoir.

And all that time, it seems he was right in the middle of them – trapped in an express elevator, where he spent more than three days in a 4-foot by 6-and-a-half-foot cab without food or water before being rescued shortly after dawn yesterday. He had made his last delivery before becoming trapped.

“I kept yelling,” a weary Mr. Chen said through an interpreter after his rescue, briefly describing his roughly 81 hours of captivity.

The offending building:

The Post headline: “Deliverance.” The Daily News headline: “Sat in hell-evator for days.” I liked the Daily News headline more until I considered the implicit snobbiness of “Deliverance.” So the tabloid-to-tabloid headline battle ends in . . . a draw! On to the next bizarre story!

Totally Unfunny

Message to any of our friends who may have ditched our holiday party Saturday to go to this dog’s “Bark Mitzvah”: You’re not our friend anymore.

I don’t know if it’s because it’s too cold today or because the Times actually wrote about it or whatever, but I find this completely, utterly unfunny. Like nausea-inducing You’re-Part-of-the-Problem unfunny:

In the long walk of history between man and dog, the bark mitzvah could be seen as an unexpected pit stop. Yet it was celebrated on Saturday night in the Bronx in a traditional way, with a party for family and friends of the 13-year-old that included a chopped-liver sculpture, choruses of “mazel tov!” (or, in this case, “muzzle tov!”), a cantor and gifts.

The proud father, wearing a dog-patterned tie, was Mark Nadler, 43, a New York cabaret singer. He had sent out invitations to dozens of friends “to share a special day in our lives when my dog, Admiral Rufus K. Boom, will celebrate his bark mitzvah in the tradition of our ancestors.”

Mr. Nadler, who had his bar mitzvah years ago, said he was not unfamiliar with entertaining at bar mitzvahs at “high holy places like the Hard Rock Cafe.” They sometimes seemed to be expensive productions that helped parents raise their social radar rather than sacred coming-of-age ceremonies for 13-year-olds. So Mr. Nadler thought he would give a bar mitzvah for his wheaten terrier and watch the eyebrows rise.