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| http://lgkeltner.blogspot.com/2014/12/announcing-sarcasm-snark-sass-blogfest.html |
L.G. Keltner is celebrating her blog's third year with a mega-dose of sarcasm, and that means today I am embracing my inner snark.
A few days ago I was finishing off a family ski trip. Our final day on the slopes came with pelting rain. Conditions were hazardous. But we wanted to do something outside that wouldn't result in more torn ACLs before we returned home, so we checked out the tubing hill. Going down was wet, but fun and much safer than skiing and snowboarding on a block of ice.
The problem was getting up the hill.
This particular tubing hill used a moving sidewalk to get its tubers up. One narrow sidewalk. So narrow and icy that you couldn't maneuver around the person in front of you. Walking up the hill yourself was not permitted. Sitting in your tube was not allowed. You had to use that sidewalk to get up the hill.
And people were just standing.
And it was raining, harder by the minute. And we were all getting pelted with icy rain.
If everyone would have walked on the moving sidewalk, the trip up would have taken half the time.
But no one did. The best we could manage was a few steps before we butted up against a line of tubers standing still, seemingly oblivious to how much time they were wasting and not at all concerned about the abysmal weather conditions.
Arrrrrgh!
Why do people stand on moving sidewalks? They are an ineffective mode of movement in and of themselves. A healthy infant can crawl faster. But when combined with walking, a person can move twice as fast.
| Move! Move! Don't just stand there! Don't you have anyplace you need to be? |
Ultimately the slow crawl of the sidewalk on that windy, frigid, wet tubing hill did us in. We couldn't abide standing still while we inched up the hill any longer.
The next time I think about going tubing, I'm going to make sure I find out the mode of transport to the top of the hill. And I'll nix one with a moving sidewalk.
I like to walk on the moving sidewalks at airports - it's much more fun that standing there. :)
ReplyDeleteI always walk on moving sidewalks. Feels like I'm flying. I walk up and down escalators as well.
ReplyDeleteMoving sidewalks are really good when you are being chased by zombies: their feet don't remember how to act on one! Also it's easier to trip the person ahead of me to occupy those hungry critters behind me!
ReplyDeleteLike Tyrean and Alex, I like to walk on them, gives me the illusion of being magical somehow. :-)
Ha, ha. They'd probably have to stand still and then at the end, that moment where you have to readjust your body's momentum as you step off, the zombies would for sure tumble over. Excellent get away plan.
DeleteI always walk on moving sidewalks. When I had a seven hour layover at the Newark airport, I passed the time by seeing how quickly I could get around using their moving sidewalks. I was 17 at the time, so I hope I can be excused from any juvenile antics that resulted at the time. Thanks for participating in my blogfest!
ReplyDeleteThat's the topic for another snarky post, right? Kids that treat transportation mechanisms like toys. Did you run up the down escalator and down the up escalator too?
DeleteI've never actually gone on a moving sidewalk, but I would probably walk on them if I did. I walk on escalators. You're right--if you walk on them you can move twice as fast, but I think if you stand on them then you're probably just being lazy.
ReplyDeleteFor the sake of riding down alone, you'd think they'd be RUNNING up the moving sidewalk. Add to that, the weather. Sounds like a lazy, strange crowd.
ReplyDeleteI know, right? It would have been so much more fun staying active the entire time. And plenty of the crowd were kids!
DeleteStart a new movement, Kim-- "Sidewalk Moves!!"
ReplyDeleteMovement optimization!
DeleteI always walk on moving sidewalks and on escalators, but if they were icy maybe the folks in front of you had their feet frozen (literally) in place.
ReplyDeleteHa, ha! Nope! The moving sidewalks were ice-free, but the areas around them were frozen, which made it impossible to pass by people on the outer parts of the sidewalk. You were utterly dependent on the people in front of you to move before you could.
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