Unfunny Day (Or, How An Escalator Ruined My Future in the Olympics)
February 18th, 2004
You knew it was coming, sooner or later. Today is one of those days. A day in which I just don’t feel the energy to be funny. So, with that warning, I would now like to talk about the time I almost lost my foot in a tragic escalator accident.
I was living in Long Island, New York. I was a child, no more than 10 years old if that. My sister and I were in a huge mall with our parents and saw a pair of escalators (one going up, one going down). We asked our parents with that Christmas-y excited voice…
Can we run up and down the escalators!?
At this point, my parents had probably figured they hadn’t lost their children yet to some freak accident, so we were probably indestructible. My parents waved us off, muttering something about being careful and we quickly ran down the escalator going up. We were stars. If there was some kind of Olympic event involving running down up-escalators, we would have been champions. Child prodigies. But alas, there was no league or training, and so we would have to settle for today’s successful run.
But alas (for a second time), it wasn’t completely successful. In order to return to the level our parents were on, we would have to run up the down escalator.
Now is the time I must explain how escalators are structured. There are the steps, jagged jaws of hell that slowly rise into steps and fall into flat panels. On either side of these rising and falling teeth-platforms is the slick metal sides that keep the teeth in check and in line. For those playing along at home, this is what an escalator looks like, minutes before something tragic happens…
Don’t ask me how or ask me why - but as we ran up the down escalator, my little Keds-encased sneaker (and foot) got wedged in the space between the moving steps and the wall of the escalator. It was trapped. And as we traveled up the down escalator, it began twisting my foot, ripping through my sneaker-top. My toes were minutes away from never seeing the 1980’s.
My toes would never feel the sand beneath their feet in California. My toes would not curl up in fear as they watched Alien. My toes would not hold jelly beans between each of them in homage to Ronald Reagan’s favorite food of all time. These toes, although they didn’t know it, would never see the best. decade. ever.
And then my sister screamed.
The rest was such a blur. My parents booking down the escalator and ripping my foot out from the wall. Laying on the mall floor with a crowd around me and an off-duty nurse telling me she was “an off duty nurse”. But my feet were safe, my toes intact, and my future Olympic career stunted.
I have not been able to ride an escalator since, without the use of a specially designed harness and backpack that allows me to “hover above” the steps themselves, never really ever setting foot on the metal menaces I refer to as the jaws, not of life, but death because of what happened to me that dark and disastrous day.
That day will live in infamy as one of the most unfunny days of my life.
Just like today.
—
In other news — I found out today I’m allergic to lobster, brussel sprouts and watermelon.
Please tell me you didn’t eat the jelly beans after they’d been between your toes. If you did, hopefully they were the nasty licorice-flavored ones anyway.
Comment by lori — February 18, 2004 @ 11:16 am
What if I cleaned them with an industrial strength anti-bacterial cream before ingesting them? Would that make it any less “ick”?
Comment by Pauly D — February 18, 2004 @ 11:20 am
oh come on–that toe jam flavored jelly bean is good.
Comment by em — February 18, 2004 @ 12:53 pm
Well, DID you clean them? I thought not. I can’t talk about this anymore…it’s….all….just…too…horrible. Make it go away!!!
Comment by Lori — February 18, 2004 @ 2:10 pm
Why are some people so anal about cleaning jelly beans after you grasp them inbetween your toes? Your toes are JUST LIKE your fingers. In fact, your toes are CLEANER than your fingers since they’re protected in a clean sock all day long.
Just so you know.
Comment by Pauly D — February 18, 2004 @ 2:19 pm
Did I ever tell you about the time my oh-so-fashionable wooden bangle bracelet (circa 1985) got caught on the down escalator in A&S at Smithaven Mall? I still can’t go down an escalator. Im thinking of getting some hypnosis so I can go down an escalator and not screw up my kid any more than I have to….
Comment by randi — February 18, 2004 @ 2:51 pm
Ew. Toe germs. Feet germs. Feet in socks all day = sweat. Sweat then breeds bacteria. Jelly bean in toes means jelly bean then coated in euwwy growy things that are microscopic.
*groans*
Oh I gross myself out sometimes!
Comment by sharn — February 18, 2004 @ 3:34 pm
Ok, people.. Can we stay FOCUSED!? My foot almost got CUT OFF in an escalator and you’re all talking about the unsanitary nature of jelly beans in someone’s toes!
Jelly Belly, my ass.
Comment by Pauly D — February 18, 2004 @ 3:42 pm
As a child, I had a huge fear of those claws–as I called them–at the end of the escalator, so much so that every ride on one was preceded by a thorough check of my shoestrings to the point of absurdity. Also, growing up in the South, it wasn’t uncommon in those days to be barefoot in a store (insert joke here). I, however, would not dare make a trip on an escalator without proper footwear (preferably steel-toed).
Comment by Jeff — February 18, 2004 @ 4:13 pm
Oh, for God’s sakes, Pauly. You’re OK NOW!! (at least physically) We all, collectively, heaved a sigh of relief at the denouement of your story when the off-duty nurse showed up and not even a baby-toe was injured. We thank god every day that you are not the secret bearer (wearer?) of prosthetic toes. (I think someone needs a Wambulance…)
Comment by lori — February 18, 2004 @ 4:53 pm
~focus focus~
I’m glad you kept all your toes and the nurse was there when you really needed her.
BUT!!
The jelly beans in toes.. ewwww!! It’s such a hard topic to leave alone, especially with my manic phobia about feet
Comment by sharn — February 18, 2004 @ 5:44 pm
When I was 8, my retarded friend Matt closed the garage door on me while I was inside. Instead of waiting for it to open again, I made a dive for it, Indiana Jones-style and it closed on me and pinned me underneath for about a half hour, while various people tried to lift the thing off me. Eventually, I was freed. But a doctor who had just happened to be walking by said that I was minutes away from being halved by the thing. I believed him at the time. That was a pretty unfunny day, too. Strangely - kind of funny now.
Comment by clightbo — February 19, 2004 @ 12:25 am
Sounds like a really, really, really MEAN doctor! I would’ve crapped my pants had someone told me that!!
So, do you not hang out in garages due to this fear?
Comment by Pauly D — February 19, 2004 @ 7:30 am
Since you went form escalator incidents, to jellybean vs. toes, and garage door mishaps - I have one. When my husband was a young, he pushed the automatic garage door button too close it and it at that exact moment, the family cat, Mr. Bill, ran out. The garage door shut right on his head in front of him and his two sisters. He doesn’t like kitties or garage doors now.
Comment by thewifey — December 5, 2004 @ 7:03 am
On the topic of the escalator, I just got my skirt caught in one and thank God I was able to yank it out. I did a search online to see how dangerous escalators really are and found this article. Yep…it isn’t funny.
Comment by Amy — December 23, 2004 @ 6:17 am
im scared of Escalators too. is there a specific name for it?
Comment by alyssa — July 21, 2006 @ 7:02 am
Are you ever wondering how the escalator are working? One of my friends,Xiao wang told me that he thought about it.Some days ago, he went to the shopping mall.There were salesmen of Hosting escalator Company.He asked them about it. So he know more about the Hosting Escalator.And he told me that they are vvvf,the technology which is energy saving and these products are mostly the CE approved products. I asked him where is the company? He told me that Ningbo Xinda Group is located in Dongwu Town,Yinzhou District,Ningbo City. Maybe later we shall go there and have a look.
Comment by mike — November 2, 2006 @ 12:43 am