How to ride an escalator:
- Approach confidently, do not hesitate.
- Step onto the first available tread.
- Grasp the handrail firmly.
- If you’re escorting children, lift them and place them squarely behind your belt or suspenders, or store them in your purse. Children have been known to slip between the treads of escalators. Children who get caught there are never the same. They’re scarred for life. Some have limbs severed. Others, the ones who see the formless, shapeless, transcosmic abyss on the other side of the escalator, always turn out bad. They get wicked ideas in their heads and start right away on acting out their criminal impulses. Soon they’ll be trading bras from the women’s clothing section with boxers in the men’s. They’ll spray paint the lenses of security cameras. They’ll write obscene things on every poster and advertisement everywhere. They’ll find an animal somewhere and try to mutilate it. They may even try to mutilate themselves. It’s really quite hopeless. The best solution is to put these escalator-crack-babies down. The lame horse method is considered the most humane.
- Do not run.
- Do not allow loose strings on clothing to become entangled in the handrail or the treads.
- Do not leap from the down-escalator to the up-escalator. Leaping from up to down is okay though.
- Never, ever, ever grab the handrail with both hands and pull it in the opposite direction of travel with all your might to see if people on the other end of the escalator get discombobulated and fall over.
- Running in place is a weird thing to do on an escalator. It’s not a treadmill. But then again, who am I to stop you?
- Wearing a swimsuit on an escalator is also weird, but who am I to stop you?
- Walking like an Egyptian? I can’t comment on that.
- Pets should never be taken on escalators.
- Senior citizens should locate the elevator.
- Introverts should also locate the elevator.
- Robots and personal cybernetic assistants should stay behind and monitor a person’s behavior for documentation purposes only.
- When you see the transition platform at the end of the escalator, don’t get off, see how long you can stay on without touching the platform. If you touch it, you’re out of the game.
- Walking the opposite way on a moving walkway may be prohibited, but on an escalator it’s encouraged.
- “Surfing” on the handrail is prohibited. Don’t even think about it.
- Sliding on the divider between an up- and down-escalator could be fun. Watch out for nasty obstructions that uncaring maintenance persons have put in the middle of the slide. A collision will ruin your day.
- Lastly, remember that if the power is somehow interrupted to the escalator, it can still be used like a normal, non-electric set of stairs. (You’re not stuck.)
Xenosthesia.com 