This is a story that I've not told in a while, mainly because I'm slightly ashamed at how gullible I was and at my stupidity in hindsight and, most probably, that my dad gets in there before I do to embarrass me in front of anyone that has not yet heard it. So, I'm putting it out there for all to see and laugh at my one of my dumb moments!

I must have been about 13 or 14 when my dad and I were in the car driving back from somewhere when he had to pop into his office to drop a document off of some sort. The place where he had to be was several floors up so we took the lift to get there. Once inside, my dad told me that I had to speak to the lift as it was voice-activated, so I said, "fifth floor".

"No, no, you need to tell it to close the doors first otherwise it won't go anywhere," said my dad.

"Close doors," and they closed, "fifth floor," and off we went. The lift moved upwards towards our destination and my dad remind me to tell the lift to open its doors. So, again, "open doors" I instructed.

Off we went to his office while he did what he had to do, me twiddling my thumbs and in awe of how amazing this new piece of technology was that I'd just experienced.

When it was time to leave, I insisted on taking the same way down now I knew what to do, only this time, we were joined by another person. "Which floor?" I asked, to which they replied, "ground floor, please."

"Close doors. Ground floor," I announced loudly into what appeared to be the microphone for this voice-activated lift. When we reached the bottom, "open doors!" and we proceeded back to the car.

Once we were out of earshot of the person that had shared this journey to the ground floor who, much to my confusion, had been shooting strange looks in my direction for the duration of this, my dad bursts into fits of laughter. "What's so funny? What are you laughing at?" I asked.

"That lift wasn't voice-activated; I was pressing the buttons behind my back - what you were speaking into was the intercom for emergencies!"

- Joanna Morgan (Web Editor)