I once had escalator-phobia

Which I was reminded of by this fascinating article about elevators (h/t bldgblog via Althouse).

I loved this paragraph:

In most elevators, at least in any built or installed since the early nineties, the door-close button doesn’t work. It is there mainly to make you think it works. (It does work if, say, a fireman needs to take control. But you need a key, and a fire, to do that.) Once you know this, it can be illuminating to watch people compulsively press the door-close button. That the door eventually closes reinforces their belief in the button’s power.

That was me, yesterday, at my Dad's rehab place, compulsively pressing the "Door Close" button until finally it closed.

(I didn't like the very next sentence after the above, however: "It’s a little like prayer." Gratuitous religion-bashing. I'm getting used to seeing it in newspaper and magazine articles, but that doesn't mean I like it any better. )

The article also has a sad tale about a man stuck in an elevator for 41 hours. The sad part wasn't the being stuck part, it was what happened afterwards.

Anyway, about my escalator phobia. It didn't develop until I had kids; I was scared to death -- nearly paralyzed -- at the thought of taking the kids on an escalator, so we'd have to search out the elevators no matter how inconvenient they were.

It wasn't until our oldest was about five that I realized she was developing the same phobia (no surprise there, right?) so I asked my husband to take her and her little sister on "escalator training sessions". We'd go to the mall, I'd stay on the ground floor, and he would take them up and down the escalators until they were comfortable on them.

Now that the kids are older, my phobia has gone away. I can get on the escalator with barely a second thought about it -- though something must still give me away, as my daughter was gently teasing me about it on a recent shopping trip.

Anyway, go read the article about elevators, if you haven't already, and then tell me about your escalator or elevator phobias. I know I'm not alone on this one.

About LinkedIn

Nancy Brown invited me to join her on Linked In last December. Until then, I'd never heard of it.
Turns out it's sort of a Facebook for grownups ("Facebook for old people", my rascally children say); it's an online professional networking system.

And it's spooky.

Today it suggested three people whom I might know, and as a matter of fact, I do know all three of them.

Now how did it know that? Maybe those three have some people on their list of contacts who also are on my list... but still...

I hate it when computers know too much.