Running up a downward escalator
Call me Buddy the Elf, but I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with escalators. I remember the first time I successfully overcame my fear enough to leap onto one of these department-store magic carpets—picture 8-year-old Miss America waving victoriously as she mysteriously ascends above the crowds on the ground floor. But as I’ve gotten older, escalators have lost some of the paparazzi. They’re terrifying chunks of metal that never stop moving. I mean, I could die on one of those things, and it wouldn’t stop. Sure, they’ll get you where you’re going—but only if you get on them in the first place and pick one that’s headed in the right direction. Once, when no one was watching, I tried to run up a downward escalator with my younger brother. I was only 11, but I won’t forget how frustrating and exhausting it was. Sometimes, life feels like that: a looming, ever-descending escalator that I’m trying to climb. It never stops moving, and takes no pity on those who fall beh...