Misadventure

(from 2014)

I was going to call this - Don’t try this at home. But actually you would have to live in an unusual home to even contemplate trying it.

We were half way driving to Scotland for the Perthshire Amber Folk Festival and stopped off at one of the motorway service stations. A visit to the rest room was in order.

Mrs O pointed to the arrow. It appeared to me that the way to my intended destination was up the escalator. So I leapt onto it. No, she cried, it is NEXT DOOR to the escalator. Our later conversation went on a rather repetitive and circular journey. Me  – if the rest room is next to the escalator why did you point UP the escalator? She – since I pointed to the entrance NEXT TO the escalator, why on earth did you GO up the escalator...?

But alerted by Mrs O as I was being swept up into the sky, I turned around and tried to run down it. As you do. Well, as you do if you are an idiot. Or think you are immortal. Or something. I discovered that running down an upward moving track is quite easy and quite fun. Until you reach the bottom. But jumping off a moving platform turns a straight forward jump into an inadvertent dive.

I shot forward, to the consternation of Mrs O and a collection of multinational shoppers, and only saved myself from serious injury by instinctively remembering days of long ago and doing a roll – coming instantly to my feet and walking off nonchalantly and rapidly around the corner – before crumbling in considerable pain. An ashen faced Mrs O followed me to pick up the pieces.

Fortunately, I haven’t broken anything. I was able to hobble to the car and we continued our journey. But I now have a bruise in the exact shape of a mobile phone on my thigh!