You should see how frightened I look when I ride them. I’m stiff as a board and I don’t make any false moves or like anybody around me to make ’em either. I hate those revolving doors at hotels and buildings, too.
Those scare the shit outta me. I’m always afraid I’m going to get trapped or smushed. Close friends who’ve gone through those doors with me know my dread of them is very real. Seriously. It takes me a few minutes to enter them, like I’m trying to jump in a game of Double Dutch. As for escalators, I used to think my pants leg or shoe strings would get stuck in the steps and snatch me down, ultimately chewing me up in the cruel, cruel steel.
What? I’m not crazy. I’m not some over-imaginative writer. Turns out my freak-outs were based on fact.
Shopping carts, escalators and lawn mowers injure 35,000 American children every year and should be redesigned, researchers said on Monday.
Last year in the United States, 24,000 children were hurt badly enough to go to the hospital after falling out of shopping carts or topping over while they rode, a statement from the American Academy of Pediatrics said.
Three-quarters of the injuries were to the head or neck.
Some children got injured when they were trapped in carts, or fell off while riding on the outside or while standing up inside the basket, the report published in the academy’s journal, Pediatrics, said.
Uh-huh. And check this out:
Many of the 2,000 annual injuries on escalators occur when a shoe, clothing or a stroller becomes trapped in the space between the moving stairs and the side wall.
See?! See?! I’m not crazy!
Now all they need to do is address those scary revolving doors and we’ll be straight.
The Lo Zone 
>Lo, who knew? You remember the commercial for some candy bar or something where the young brother is riding up the escalator and he is so into his candy that he doesn't realize that his jeans (oversize, of course) have been caught in the jaws of the escalator. When he getst to the top he steps off the moving stairs with a smile on his face and his pants gone. Seemed impossible but our subway system here in DC records many accidents on the escalators as a result of shoe laces, sandle straps, etc. getting tangled.Now for the revolving door thingy — I've seen people get stuck when something they are carrying is outside their "slice" and wedges between the edge and the frame but no injuries. If not for an ordinace against public drinking I would suggest a caipirinha before entering a revolving door. Cheers!
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>uhhhhhh, yeah.
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>I'm somewhat uneasy with escalators myself, not as much as when I was younger. However, there is an escalator in Atlanta (I used to live there) that is at the Downtown Marta Station, I can't remember the exact stop but it lets you out at the hotels downtown, but talk about steep, that thing must be at a 70 degree angle. Just the thought of riding it makes me uneasy. I can see it now, an earthquake hits Atlanta (I know that doesn't happen in that part of the country) and everyone on the escalator gets flung off and smashed to pieces. Ewwww! Just riding it makes me think I'm going to fall off.
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>yeah, rich. i think that's the peachtree center station, i believe. talking about getting dizzy looking up and down while riding. there's a steep one here in nyc at the 51st. street station, but the one in atlanta is hard to beat.
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