this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2024
119 points (99.2% liked)

chat

8104 readers
217 users here now

Chat is a text only community for casual conversation, please keep shitposting to the absolute minimum. This is intended to be a separate space from c/chapotraphouse or the daily megathread. Chat does this by being a long-form community where topics will remain from day to day unlike the megathread, and it is distinct from c/chapotraphouse in that we ask you to engage in this community in a genuine way. Please keep shitposting, bits, and irony to a minimum.

As with all communities posts need to abide by the code of conduct, additionally moderators will remove any posts or comments deemed to be inappropriate.

Thank you and happy chatting!

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Got off a red eye flight with my family and my kid said he was hungry, so we agree that I'll get some breakfast stuff with my kid while my wife gets the baggage.

Leave awkwardly holding two coffees and bags of pastries. Everything is fine until we get to the escalator, and here's where I fucked up.

I helped maneuver my kid's suitcase onto the escalator and then because it looked like it might fall over, stepped onto the escalator after it. This would have been fine EXCEPT my kid doesn't like to get on an escalator by himself. So while I began to descend the escalator with the bag, he stayed at the top calling after me, increasingly distressed.

I began running up the escalator the wrong way, still holding the two coffees and now the suitcase as well. I had almost gotten to the top when I slipped, spilling my wife's hot coffee all over the escalator and jamming my knee into the razor-sharp edge of the escalator stairs. Fortunately a kind gentleman helped my kid onto the escalator as I scrambled around the moving, coffee-covered stairs. What became of the other coffee, you may ask? That one was accidentally spilled by my son on the floor where I was sitting a short time later, bandaging my bleeding knee, soaking my butt with coffee.

Long story short, I'm now lying in bed icing my fucked up knee. Fortunately I found some old percocets in the medicine box. The moral of the story is that America must be destroyed

all 49 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 44 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

...what exactly are you cautioning me against?

Coffee? Kids? Escalators?

[–] [email protected] 44 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Yeah all that plus some other stuff. Capitalism probably

[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 month ago

Capitalism Probably

By Friedrich Marx

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 month ago

Fuck I want some percocets.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 month ago

Never the three shall meet

[–] [email protected] 38 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Where did you get the CCTV footage of the incident??

[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 month ago

The moral of the story? You can't trust the system!

[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 month ago (1 children)

This would have been fine EXCEPT my kid doesn't like to get on an escalator by himself.

Smart kid.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Never get on a small plane. Never get on a helicopter. Never go on an escalator by yourself without a battle buddy.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 month ago

I hear you loud and clear: don't have kids mario-thumbs-up

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 month ago (2 children)

No joke I fucking hate escalators. Regular stairs are best and if not, take an elevator.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Escalators have a way higher throughput than elevators though

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

blah blah blah :nerd:

yeah right nerd

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago

Really long escalators give me an excuse to stop and take in the sights. It's like permission to slow down. I especially like just riding those "people movers"

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 month ago

Why would communism do this?

Hope you feel better soon, comrade

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Sounds like something from a 90s family comedy. Feel better soon. meow-hug

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 month ago

Thanks comrade. The percs are definitely helping

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Hope you're going to be alright.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I'll be okay, just banged myself up pretty good. Nothing broken and no stitches needed at least

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

That's good to know. I work around some folks who are always afraid for their knees, so I sometimes have that in the back of my head.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 month ago

So what you're saying is

This pastry just cost me $78 at Newark Airport.

This is why Americans think the economy is terrible.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 month ago

Death to America!

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 month ago (1 children)

That sucks. Sounds like your kid is around four?

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

A little older, but he's a bit anxious about certain things

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Escalators definitely can cause anxiety and a surprising number of adults don't know how to use them safely. I always stand at least four steps behind people on the up escalator because the number of people that will step off the escalator and just stop while they decide which direction to pick next is shocking.

I think that if you pick a fun place to visit and then do escalator drills, the same way that we teach kids to cross roads safely, then it might help with the anxiety. Also it's something that will hopefully pass on generationally.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago

escalator drills

the Stackable Crayon of power tools

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago (2 children)

I watched videos of deadly escalator incidents as a kid on the internet and I won’t go anywhere near them both then and now as I’ve done more research on them as an adult. That kid is right to be anxious about these in my opinion.

They typically don’t have any sort of automatic cutoff because the way they operate is a fixed speed at variable loads. So if a foreign object gets sucked into the machinery it will pass that foreign object through without a hiccup. The guards in place to prevent the intrusion of foreign objects are inadequate and the addition of a manual emergency cutoff is not adequate either.

The foam type of shoes, like crocs or those foam soled Nike’s for example, are very easy to get caught in the machinery when, for instance, you try and “polish” your shoes against the brushes on the side. Typically children wear those shoes, typically children don’t have the foresight to think that’s a bad idea, and the data shows that typically it’s children involved in fatal escalator incidents. It’s a bad design, ban escalators, turn them all into stairs.

These problems get worse when escalators are not properly maintained, and it’s expensive to maintain escalators properly. They will only get more unsafe with time as the metaphorical copper continues getting ripped out of the walls of our economy and maintenance budgets collapse.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I got a croc caught in the side of an escalator as a kid. Fortunately it just yanked the shoe off my foot, mangled it, and spit it out at the top.

I don't like escalators anymore.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

That was my worst nightmare, I'm glad all you lost was a shoe. rat-salute

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

While this is true, the actual risk in terms of incidents per escalator journey taken are miniscule. The risk of being seriously injured in an escalator incident is similar to that of being struck by lightning, which is not, for most people, a daily concern.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 month ago

This is all capitalism's fault.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 month ago

nuke america xi-communism-button

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Oh fuck that's awful

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 month ago
[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 month ago

Your kid being anxious if elevators reminds me of how I developed a really bad anxiety of electric fences when I was a teenager. Not ideal when I live in the countryside and have to cross and open electric fences to walk my dog, so whenever I was walking without anyone else, I would get on my belly and scotch on the ground under the fence (which were usually like three feet above ground, I could have just ducked).

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Lol.

I appreciate you for finding enough humour in the whole situation to entertain us with it. Wishing you a swift recovery.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago

I could immediately tell it would be funny later

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago
[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Sounds like you defeated the curse from Final Destination well done

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago

more like a red knee flight

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Did your wife laugh at you or

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

I was bleeding quite a bit so she was more concerned