Temerity Jane

You eventually end up at the bottom.

Internet, there’s no graceful way to say this, so I’m just going to come out and say it.

Today, I fell down an escalator.

An up escalator.

I had a meeting in DC today, and I don’t drive in DC because oh my fucking god, so I was taking the metro. There’s not actually a metro station too close to my house, so I was really driving to the metro and THEN taking the metro. Being as it was a weekday and I was going on the DC Metro system, there was of course only one parking spot open in the whole of Shady-Grove-Metro-Station-Ville-Shire, and it was way at the edge of the kingdom. And being that I was going to an importanty work meeting, I had my laptop. And being that I’m a girl, I had my purse. And being that I like to carry around things that I don’t actually end up using, I also had the office’s fancy projector with me as well.

I strapped my laptop backpack to my pack, slung the projector bag over my shoulder in the front and threw my purse on my other shoulder and headed across the lands for the station, considering an alternate career as a sherpa, maybe part time, just a weekend gig, possibly. Eventually, I got to the station, and since I was down in DC last week for the conference I mentioned that I am not going to try to explain again, I already had a farecard and headed through the turnstile while digging my phone out of my purse in order to check my email before heading underground for the half hour journey.

I got on the escalator and stood to the right, as you do. Normally I stomp up the left side because I am impatient and I like how moving stairs make me feel like I’m moving extra fast, you know, to have a little super hero moment in my days, but I had so much crap strapped to me that I would have been whacking the hell out of other people on the escalator.

So there I was, standing, looking down at my phone, completely oblivious to the world around me, which is my normal operating state, until some action started. Now, I don’t really know what happened to the woman a stair above me, I don’t know if someone brushed by her too hard or if the wind blew in some freakish gust that only hit that exact escalator stair or if she was productively using the time to practice some dance moves, but all of a sudden her arms started waving. You know, like in the movies, where someone is trying to catch their balance, and they’ve got their arms windmilling around and just when it looks like they might pull it off, they go tumbling down anyway? Yeah, exactly like that. Just as I was looking up and getting a grasp on what was happening and dropping my phone back into my purse, she lost it. Her butt into my gut and down we both went.

All the way down. All the way down the up escalator. Which I imagine takes longer than falling down a down escalator, or even regular stairs. And me, me with my laptop strapped to my back and the projector strapped to my front, I was like two turtles taped together. Which piece of expensive company-owned electronics shall I let my entire weight land on?

So, down we go, tangled up, to land in a heap at the bottom of the stairs. Her, flailing like it’s going to do something – we’re already past that point, lady, we are now at def con 1, skull protection stage of the fall – and me, trying to awkwardly angle myself so as to maybe chip my pelvis instead of crack the screen of my Macbook, and then all of a sudden we were in said heap at the bottom of the stairs.

I kind of laid there for a second or two – felt like forever, not long I’m sure – and the woman starts WAILING. Wailing like a person would wail if… well, if they had just fallen down an escalator and apparently broken an arm. So, hey, I know what that sounds like now. So she is wailing and quite distressed and there are people gathered around, and I was kind of just blinking at them, when I very slowly – and again, I am sure this was all just a matter of seconds – came to realize that wailing lady is stretching her vocal cords from a position that puts her mouth quite close to my ear, as she was still heaped on top of me with no apparent immediate intentions to do anything but wail.

Some people gathered around and a nice gentleman reached down and grasped me under both of my arms and dragged me out from under this woman. See, now I have fallen down an escalator, been pinned by a wailing woman, and then touched and dragged by a stranger. I put my hand on the ground to get up and the man put his hands on my shoulders and pushed me back down and said “Stay down, someone is calling an ambulance.” I tried to get up again, and this time he and another man each put one hand on one of my shoulders and gently pushed me back to the ground again. That was it, I had been touched too many times. Probably within about 2 minutes or even less of the whole incident happening, I was back up on my feet. There was a small crowd gathered around Screamy McTwistyArm and myself at this point, and I could hear the train coming in, and they were blocking the escalator, and I had a meeting to get to, and people were touching me and crowding me, so I started to wiggle my way through.

The nice gentleman once again made a grab for me, catching the back of my laptop bag and said “Stay here, the paramedics are coming, you fell pretty hard.” I responded, “I’m fine, I have to go!,” and shook him off. I heard him say “But miss!” but I took off running up the escalator and made it into the train just as the doors were about to close.

Total super hero moment!

Upon assessing the damage, I seem to have escaped with two minor scrapes/scratches to my hand and wrist, one mysterious painful bruise-esque spot in the middle of my back, an unpleasant head-lump, a sore shoulder, a raging headache and a dazed feeling that didn’t wear off until halfway through the meeting I was on my way to. Oh, and also, a kind of vague feeling of guilt that I left Yelly O’GrossInjury lying on the ground.

I’m sure that, at least, will wear off by tomorrow.