Escalators

January 2017

Well, I made it I guess. I was excited to be back in Idaho. I guess. Well, at least I thought I should be excited. It's the thought that counts, right? Guess I proved that saying wrong because I still had nothing. I suppose that's to be expected though, just getting back from Christmas break and all, and knowing with certainty that you're in for a bumpy third quarter because of... stuff. At any rate, I wasn't exactly hopping to go back. Hoping, however, to still catch my carpool in time, I kept walking toward the baggage claim instead of slumping down at the nearest pillar and drowning myself in self-pity, self-inflicted misery, and general downcast spirits, as tempting as that was. And then, there they were. Christy and Rachel and her sister Emily were by a bench waiting for the baggage carousel to reanimate. "Hey Leaf!" they cried out. Hugs were given and I was introduced to Emily, who heretofore remained unknown to me. They chatted happily and I joined in here and there, still holding onto my irrational melancholy. But then we got tired of standing around, and so, since it was her baggage anyways, Emily stayed behind and waited whilst the rest of us walked off towards... somewhere. We weren't quite sure. Along the way we ran into a pair of escalators, one going up and the other, as you might not have guessed, going down. We decided to ascend, and descend, and go around again. All at once, a lightbulb was lit above Christy's head. "I know! We should go to the other escalators at the end of the hallway where nobody's around and play on them! That's what I was doing before yall got here, and it was so fun!" I was instantly captured by her enthusiasm and swept away by our glorious plans for killing time, and at the same time all thoughts of ugh-why-am-I-here, and ugh-I-want-to-be-sad-for-no-reason were immediately dispersed and left, lying at the floor of a bottomless chasm filled with water in a stunning ash heap of dry dust, completely forgotten for the foreseeable eternity.
Rachel, ahem, was less than amused. "Are you guys really gonna do this? Ughh!"
Christy and I chanted back, "YES YES YES! We're gonna do it and it's gonna be great! You have to come with us! At least watch!"
"Aghh, fine!"
"Hooray!"
With the greatest of jubilation and a little bit of pulling and dragging and further persuading, we set off. Soon enough, we arrived. We ran up the down escalators and down the up ones, we laughed as we did the most ridiculous things and then we did even funnier things too. At last Rachel, encouraged by the utter lack of random strangers, and tempted horribly by our immense pleasure at our game, joined in. And then, o what fun we had! Three is better than two, and by golly did we prove it! We imitated statues while riding up and down, attempted splits, raced, jumped, and just generally had a good time. And we laughed.

But then, the horror. A dry voice came over the airport intercom, "Please do not play on the escalators. Please use them only for their intended purpose. Thank you." We all looked at each other with that deer in the headlights look and promptly descended and walked back toward the baggage claim. Evidently somebody had, er, noticed us. Awkward. Rachel was mortified. Christy and I chuckled about it to ourselves. And then, we made it to the baggage carousel. Emily came up to us, "That was you wasn't it!" Our sheepish grins betrayed the truth as she continued to express her shock and awe that we would do such a thing to the extent that they had to tell us to stop using the intercom for the whole entire airport. We didn't feel any remorse, though there may have been that 'guilt' that a dog has when he eats food he wasn't supposed to eat. It's not that we were sad we'd played on the escalators, but more of that we were sad we got caught. At any rate, we hoisted our bags upon our shoulders and made off for the car. We may or may not have been cackling about our adventure all along the way. The midnightish sky was foreboding, dark, and silent, just about the opposite of all our hearts right then. The soft snow slid down the sky and sat, smiling, at our feet.