Help! I'm scared of escalators!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

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 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! :eek: 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:

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. :eek: 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)

F_X

2

I try not to breathe while on elevators. Don’t know why, it just makes me nervous. This was difficult when I went up to the 86th floor of the Empire State Building, as the elevator takes a long, looooooong time.

:eek:

3

Flamsterette, you are not a “wuss” at all. But judging from this comment, I would suspect that you have a mild phobia:

I’m not wild about escalators myself but I don’t have a “fear” of them or physical reactions such as those you describe. (Or were you using hyperbole?)

One of my friends, an extremely bright young woman, has a slight fear of escalators and she takes my arm when we are on one.

If you stop denying it’s a phobia, maybe your brother will be a little less provocative.:stuck_out_tongue:

4

I’m somewhat comfortable on “up” escalators, until I get to the “stepping off” part. That makes me a bit uncomfortable.
But getting on a “down” escalator really bugs me, especially if I have a child or two holding my hand.

In high school, though, we would ride the “Broadway” escalators in reverse. I was entirely comfy going “up the down staircase” and “down the up staircase”.

And nothing happened in between – oh, yes, one thing did. I moved to Oregon in 1973 and rode no escalators for the next, um, fifteen years.

-Another Primate

5

Then you have not been to London (England)? Some of the tube stations have THE longest escalators I have ever been on or seen! :eek:

6

If you ride the escalator later in the day, you won’t have to worry about being eaten by the Escalator Monster that lives under it. He will have already eaten all of the people that he wants to eat … at least until tomorrow.

7

Listen, not a year goes by, not a year, that I don’t hear about some escalator accident involving some bastard kid which could have easily been avoided had some parent–I don’t care which one–but some parent conditioned him to fear and respect that escalator!
-------Mallrats

8

Snooooopy, hahaha. That reminds me of something Eric said on the escalator ride:

F_X

9

Down-escalators [hullo oxymoron] terrify me… the thought of the inital step onto one can literally get my pulse racing.

I feel ya.

10

Sorry, I only skimmed the thread thus far looking for Snooooopy’s response. I’ll get to the other ones now in rough posting order:

jackelope: That reminds me of when I was on a road trip with family and friends: “Don’t breathe while we’re in the tunnel!” Doable for some tunnels, less so for others. But yes, I do breathe when on an escalator… it may not be regular and such, but it is breathing! :smiley:

Another Primate: No escalators for fifteen years?!? Man, that’s a good streak! Down escalators are slightly better than up escalators, but not by much. Then again, I once had to ride an up escalator with my clarinet case and other things in hand… that wasn’t exactly fun.

Zoe: I don’t think it’s a phobia (never been diagnosed with one, at any rate)… I just get maybe unreasonably afraid of them. Then again, maybe it is. However, if you knew Jon like I know him… he might make mild fun of me for it. Certainly hope not, though. He does do certain things to be provocative… not just to me, but everyone else, too.

Violet: No, I haven’t been to London. Thanks for warning me about the tube stations if I ever do decide to go there. Are you sure they don’t have elevators and / or stairs?

Juniper200: thanks. That quote reminds me of when my favorite kid got his hand stuck in the escalator a couple of years ago… poor kid still has a relatively large scar on his hand.
One other thing which I forgot in my last post: When I did take the stairs while everyone else took the escalator, I managed to beat them upstairs every single time. (maybe that was because of the crowds on the escalators, but :stuck_out_tongue: to them anyhow :D)

On preview:

scablet: I ensure I have a firm step onto the first step of any escalator… and yes, it WILL send my pulse racing!

F_X

11

You aren’t a wuss at all, Flamsterette_X. I had the self same problem.

My Mum wasn’t all that keen on escalators, telling me once she’d slipped on one and there’d been a nasty accident. So, as I was growing up, we would never go near escalators of any type.

Come my adulthood, I was petrified of the things, never having the chance to get used to them. When I first started work, I noticed that there was a small arcade of shops close by to work which had a mini-escalator, only a few feet high. What I did was practice on that for a while, at lunchtime, with next to no one around to push me onto it or mock at my stumbles. Quite soon, I mastered the knack of stepping on at just the right time, holding onto the moving belt, then stepping off.

Don’t mind them, now, but I always respect them. I’ve rescued a couple of kids off escalators when they’d slipped and fallen, while their parents/guardians stood just looking on, not knowing how to get little Johnny or Susie off the thing that could do them a lot of damage.

12

Thanks for your comments, Ice Wolf. I can understand how your childhood conditioning would have led to a deep-seated fear of the things. (I never had any such conditioning myself) But it’s good to hear you have no problems with them now. :slight_smile: Maybe someday, I’ll be the same way.

Must sleep now; got a wedding and banquet to go to tomorrow. I’ll get back to this thread when I can.

F_X

13

I’m not afraid of escalators (which is good because I live in NYC) but I have a dreadful fear of yogurt.

The evil creamy gloop that comes in little plastic containers. The putrid smell from a mile away will cause me to shake with terror and start heaving.

I can’t be in the same room as someone eating yogurt. Watching it is like watching those people in Fear Factor eat the disgusting things they come up with each week. But yogurt is far more disgusting.

I don’t know why.

But frozen yogurt, that stuff is yummy.

Anyway, I’m sure there are more escalator injuries per capita than yogurt injuries, so your phobia is probably less crazy than mine.

14

Down escalators aren’t a problem, but up escalators can be nasty. If you fall over on one of them you just tumble in place forever.
[sub]Note to self: Juniper200 quotes Kevin Smith and The Bobs in the same post; this is someone worth keeping an eye on.[/sub]

15

I’m guessing you’re joking, Robot Arm, but up escalators make me nervous for just that reason. And they’re not even carpeted.

I like stairs. I’ll take an escalator, usually, but if there are parallel stairs, I’ll use those. I almost never use an elevator. A few years ago, I got stuck in one, opened the doors between-floors, and scrambled out of a small space which was the at top two feet of the outside door, but the bottom two feet of the elevator door-- nearly losing my balance and falling into the open shaft on landing. Not too bright, but I really don’t like enclosed spaces.

16

Comments: Those 6-story escalators that span roads (and I thought they were 8-lane roads, but I didn’t pay much attention) are typically called “moving walkways”, but you can also cross the street at ground level. It might be that you have to take an escalator up to those moving walkways, I don’t remember. Anyway, I’m not a fan of escalators myself.

17

I, too, fear escalators. I distinctly recall an escalator eating my older sister’s shoestring, ripping off the hem of her new jeans, and nearly breaking her ankle (ok, when I was about 3). I avoid them like the plague.

My solution? I had a baby, who rides in a stroller, and we use elevators exclusively now. Drastic, perhaps, but it works for me. And I don’t have to ride the Stairway of Death anymore.

18

This was lost in the wintrer of our missed-content, but I’ll repost here:

I worked at a trade show in Chicago in the summer of 2000. During the show people who helped set up were fed, though the food consisted mostly of dry, tasteless chicken and turkey. This occasionally produced noxious, shall we say, emissions. After one such meal, I was riding the escalator up, and felt a clear urge to, er, expel some of the aforementioned emissions. I glanced over my shoulder to be sure nobody was behind me, and finding the escalator clear, let loose. In seconds, I heard “JESUS CHRIST” at about the level of my waist. Apparently a man in a wheelchair had gotten on the escalator immediately behind me, and was hanging onto the handrails and leaning forward. In glancing over my shoulder, he was too close behind me and too low for me to see, until I turned completely around to notice him turning his head violently from side to side attempting in vain to get out of the way of my emission. Letting go would have plunged him, wheelchair and all, backwards down the escalator. So he had no choice but to stay and bear the gas, which had exited my backside a scant ten or twelve inches from his face. What I want to know was, with a functioning elevator not ten feet from the escalator, why would he choose the more dangerous route, and especially, why follow someone so closely? I felt sorry for him, but not too sorry. I exited the escalator as quickly as possible so as not to be identified.

Some people need to be afraid of escalators.

b.

19

Oh my Goddess.

I’m not alone.

I’m not phobic about escalators, and I do ride them all the time. But…they make me nervous. Just…nervous.

But damn, it’s good to know I’m not the only one. :slight_smile:

20

Back when I was 12 or 13 I fell down our basement stairs. I was trying to carry two folding chairs and had them tucked under my arms like crutches; considering my height at the time it was a pretty stupid thing to do, as the bottom of the chairs got caught on the top step and I went (literally) flying down the stairs. Fortunately (and amazingly) the only injury was a slight wrist fracture.

Flash forward a few months. It’s December, and the family is out shopping. I have a rather large box in my arms and am about to get on the escalator going down. I suddenly realize that I can’t see my feet and panic - literally freezing in place, unable to move because I’m afraid to put my feet on a moving step that I can’t see. My Dad takes the package, but now the phobia has locked in and even though I can now see I still can’t bring myself to get onto the escalator. I finally have to find a stairway to go down.

For several years after that I was unable to get on an escalator going down. Riding up is no problem, but whenever I try to step on stairs moving down my mind replays the image of my stepping off into space, unable to reach the next step. Eventually I managed to get over this, but to this day I occasionally catch myself hesitating before stepping on a down escalator. I do find that it helps if I can occupy my mind with something else before actually getting to the excalator.

Although how the hell anybody in a wheelchair could even get on an escalator puzzles me. Unless the steps are really wide, he must have been balanced on the edge of the step, with only his grip on the handrail keeping him from plunging down backwards. Dangerous not only for him, but for everyone behind him.