Saturday, December 28, 2002

Help! I am damn scared of escalators!

No, really. Some of you may know and like me well enough, but I am about to tell you something that will drastically change your opinion of me from a reasonably confident person into a wuss. This all-important truth that I must share? (thanks ever so much to Snooooopy for giving me the inspiration)

I am damn scared of escalators.

Now, I know that most people don't have a problem with them; in fact, they just use them for the convenience. But for some reason, I don't like them. I don't have a phobia of them, nor am I so petrified of them that I won't go on one. (of course I have in the past, and am probably likely to do so again in the future) Maybe it's the whole "moving staircase" thing, the "being afraid of heights" thing, or some other thing that triggers it. In fact, I'm not likely to go to Vegas anytime soon, as I hear from my brother that they have these HUGE escalators that span six-lane highways. So whenever possible, I use the stairs or the elevator. (despite my brother warning me that elevators could get stuck or have something else wrong with them)

Yesterday, I went shopping with my brother and our dear friends Nathan and Eric. Whenever possible, I took the stairs at the mall and at the Skytrain stations. However, there was this particular station (Granville) that didn't have an elevator. So I had to take this loooooooooooooong extended escalator (the same one that I took back in July, in fact) up to where we could take the stairs to get out to the downtown area. That might not have been TOO bad if my brother hadn't insisted on riding backwards right in front of me, and making like he was going to ride on the rails too! I just concentrated on getting to the top of the thing, which was hard to see with a hundred people in front of me. When we were in the middle of the long ride (or so it seemed to me), my brother decided to make a comment which I didn't react well to at all:

Quote: "Hey Eric, you know what would happen if someone in front of us were to fall? That means we'd all fall with them! That would be cool.. a really huge domino effect!"


*Not* the most pleasant thing to hear. When we were nearly at the top (thank God), my brother then decided to see if he could do a little dance. Not now, not here.. it obscured the top for me, so I told him to just get off this thing ASAP. So no, that was not the most pleasant experience I had yesterday. (and yes, I am well aware that there are far worse things going on than a little escalator ride, but this is MY fear!)

It didn't help that during the ride, my brother commented to us that once at the top, we could go down the long escalator and back up again. I was definitely quite adamantly against doing that, let me tell you. At the end of the ride, I was slowly getting my breath and heartbeat back when my brother commented that since I'd conquered my fear, we could do this over again any number of times. Yes, I've had to conquer that fear many times, but it doesn't get too much easier for me with each successive time. (wish it did, though!)

So any similar stories / tips / general comments to share? (and please don't post that I'm a wuss of the highest order.. I know that already, thank you very much)

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